Team Winamax Pro Bruno Lopes Wins 2016 Winamax SISMIX Main Event
After almost six hours of play on the final table, the Team Winamax pro Bruno Lopes from France emerged as the winner of the 2016 Winamax SISMIX Main Event for 850,000 MAD (€78,341). Lopes is now closing in on $1 million in career live tournament earnings after the victory.
The Main Event victory marks the third-biggest win for Lopes in his poker career, and his fourth biggest tournament cash. In 2012, he won the Euro Finals of Poker €5,000 No-Limit Hold'em Diamond Championships for €100,000, the WPT National Series Cannes €1,650 Main Event for €108,000, and then he took fourth place in the EPT Madrid €5,300 Main Event for €140,000.
The day began with 22 players competing it out in hopes to later in the day emerge victorious at the final table. It didn't take long for the first elimination of the day to take place with Romain Lewis exiting the tournament in 22nd place for 36,000 MAD (€3,318) after he shoved his stack of a little more than 20 big blinds in with 
. Lewis found himself dominated by [Removed:13]'s 
and was unable to improve his hand on the 
board.
Eliminations early in the day continued in fairly quick succession, with play down to two six-max tables after the third blind level was in the books. Very soon after that France's Alexis Fleur snagged the chip lead and never gave it up until play was heads up.
After six hours of play, the unofficial seven-handed final table, which was an all-French affair, was declared with all remaining players agreeing it was time to take a dinner break. Play resumed almost 90 minutes later at 9 p.m. local time when, on the very first hand back, Thomas Cazayous, who at the time held the second shortest stack, was eliminated when his 
was unable to beat Fleur's 
after getting it all in for his remaining 11 big blinds to bow out in seventh place for 122,000 MAD (€11,244).
About an hour later, Karim Benamrouche was the next player eliminated after he was all in for his short stack of nine big blinds with the 
and was outmatched by [Removed:13]'s 
. Despite temporarily causing some excitement when he was temporarily ahead with a pair on the 
board, the 
completed the board, giving Guiglini a better pair and eliminating Benamrouche in sixth place for 160,000 MAD (€14,747).
Once again it was about another hour before the next elimination, as Grégory Cometto was able to double up on back-to-back hands to appear to be back in the thick of things. However, Cometto's luck ran out after he cold four-bet the and was called by Team Winamax pro Bruno Lopez who held the 
. A queen spiked the flop, ending Cometto's hopes at a title and sending him to the rails in fifth place for 210,000 MAD (€19,355).
The remaining four players were then battling it out for about 90 minutes before Guiglini and Lopes collided in a post-flop battle leading to Guiglini's elimination in fourth place for 275,000 MAD (€25,346).
We didn't have to wait long after that for the next elimination, when Fleur, who didn't look at his hand when making a button raise, called a cold four-bet shove by Sébastien Compte from the big blind for over 2 million after then looking at his cards and finding he was holding the 
. Compte had the 
and was just about drawing dead after the 
appeared on the flop.
Fleur then had a more than 2-1 chip advantage on his opponent and play was paused for a break. The heads-up battle appeared to be over before it began, with the duo getting it all in preflop with Fleur holding the 
to dominate Lopes with the 
. The , however, moved the 2-1 chip advantage over to Lopes instead of sending him off with a second-place finish.
The duo then battled it out for almost three hours before Lopes was declared the winner when his 
was able to out-flop Fleur's 
after Fleur found himself very low on chips from a few hands before. Fleur finished runner-up for 565,000 MAD (€53,917).