Who will succeed Leo Truche, the winner of the 2023 French Championship? The answer will be known on Sunday, but the action started this Wednesday, September 11, with Day 1a of the €1,000 Main Event.
In this first of three flights, 143 entrants were recorded, but only 44 players managed to bag chips at the end of the day. Among them, Mathias Marza quickly rose to the top of the chip counts. He maintained the lead throughout the day and finished with 565,000 chips, the largest stack of all.
€1,000 French Championship Main Event Day 1a Top 10
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mathias Marza | France | 565,000 | 377 |
| 2 | Heni Mokni | France | 354,500 | 236 |
| 3 | Julien Combier | France | 352,000 | 235 |
| 4 | Cyrille La Balme | France | 309,000 | 206 |
| 5 | Bruno Khalifa | France | 268,000 | 179 |
| 6 | Bruno Fitoussi | France | 240,000 | 160 |
| 7 | Akram Soliane | France | 240,000 | 160 |
| 8 | Malcolm Franchi | France | 231,000 | 154 |
| 9 | Yunus Ekinci | France | 228,000 | 152 |
| 10 | Julien Pavon | France | 213,500 | 142 |
To build his stack, Marza eliminated the 2024 6-max French champion Julien Mariani, won a big pot from Arnaud Mattern to gain confidence, and battled with Laurent Michot at the end of the day. Michot ultimately lost the battle and bagged 55,000 chips.
Heni Mokni (354,500) and Julien Combier (352,000) also finished with big stacks, along with Bruno Fitoussi (240,000), who had to re-enter the tournament once. During the last minutes, Fitoussi had Malcolm Franchi (231,000) to his left, who hit a straight to send PMU Team Pro Jeremy Surinach to the rail in the last level. Franchi qualified for Day 2 with 231,000 chips.
Mathias Moutaoukil (185,000), Michel Leibgorin (184,500), Omar Lakhdari (150,000), Erich Tedeschi (145,000), Hugues Girard (141,000), Alexandre Le Vaillant (122,000), Remi De Rossi (118,500), and Fabian Rolli (118,000) also advanced to Day 2.
Finally, 2018 EPT Monte Carlo winner Nicolas Dumont (111,500), Michel Molenaar (105,000), and 2023 NAPT Las Vegas champion Sami Bechahed (92,000) are still in the race to win a national title after having already excelled at the international level.
Tomorrow, Thursday, September 12th, the Main Event continues with Day 1b at 1:00 p.m. local time. Ten 60-minute levels will be played in this flight. Then at 9 p.m., the third and last flight will begin with 30-minute levels. Late registration remains open until the end of Level 12 on Day 2.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be on the floor throughout the entire Main Event to provide all of the action until a winner is crowned!
