The World Poker Tour's most recent exotic international stop, this time in Marrakech, Morocco, attracted enough players to not only justify another future visit, but to create a first prize worth over a half million dollars.

416 players signed up for the inaugural, EUR4,500 buy-in, no-limit hold 'em WPT event- hosted by Chilipoker- including Antonio Esfandiari, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Huck Seed, Annette Obrestad, Liz Lieu, Sorel Mizzi, Tony G and the ever personable Ross and Barney Boatman.

The Boatmans, fresh from both making the final table of the Marrakech "High Rollers" event- an event Ross was able to take down- were unable to parlay their success during their main event runs, and found themselves eliminated well before the final day of play, along with most of the other well known pros in attendance.

One notable exception was French pro Ludovic Lacay, who made it all the way into the top three, before busting out and excepting his EUR164,467* third prize share. 

With Lacay out of the way, the heads-up portion of the event began between relative unknown Christophe Savary and Ireland's Eoghan O'Dea- who last year took 2nd in the 2008 Poker Million VII, for a $260,000 score.

Unfortunately for O'Dea, it soon became apparent he was destined for yet another large but disappointing second place finish, and eventually walked away from the table with the EUR263,147* runner-up prize, leaving EUR378,273* for Savary to savor, along with a WPT bracelet and a $25,000 entry into the WPT World Championship.

*Prize amounts sourced from the Official Chilipoker Blog (www.chiliblog.com), which provided updates, chip counts and photos, throughout the course of the entire WPT event.


Story by Mark Anderson