Former Runner-Up Sylvain Loosli Through to Winamax SISMIX Day 2
It was another record-breaking day at the Winamax SISMIX festival, with an astonishing 458 entries on Day 1b of the Main Event. This smashed the 369 from last year and, in addition to the 276 that played yesterday, means that there are a total of 734 entries total with Day 1c still to go.
There were plenty of Winamax Team Pros in action on Day 1b, with Gaelle Baumann, Leo Margets, Bruno Lopes, Pierre Calamusa and Sylvain Loosli taking their seats. From these five, only Loosli will advance to Day 2, looking to improve on his second place in 2015 the year that Jerome Sgorrano was victorious.
Sgorrano himself was in action today as well, firing two bullets but falling short twice in quick succession.
The chip leader on Day 1b is Jean Chenonier. The Frenchman amassed a total of 611,000 chips, slightly ahead of Slovenian Roman Gombosi (555,000). These are the only two players over the 500,000 chip mark, but both still trail yesterday's chip leader Mantas Petrauskas with 643,000.
Other big stacks include Jean De Haas (479,000), Clement Lefevre (473,000), Remi Blanc (453,000), Jamal Tahtah (431,000), and Yannick Ansenne (430,000).
| Position | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jean Chenonier | France | 611,000 |
| 2 | Roman Gombosi | Slovenia | 555,000 |
| 3 | Jean De Haas | France | 479,000 |
| 4 | Clement Lefevre | France | 473,000 |
| 5 | Fernandez | Spain | 470,000 |
We caught up with Winamax Team Pro Sylvain Loosli in the last level of the night to ask him how he felt about the Winamax SISMIX Main Event.
"It's a fun tournament," said Loosli, "It's always fun to play a Winamax tournament, especially here, because most people know us and they play differently. Some people are kind of scared, some like to win hands against us. It's always fun.
"It's an amazing structure, and it's good fun."
Loosli has a commemorative button and a bottle at the TheatrO nightclub to give away should someone bust him, but he says that people don't tend to play so differently against him while at the tables.
"It's nothing new for me to say, but it's important to have a group of people you can work with and share things with. That's really nice."
"Usually not so much, but I would say they tend to call too much against us thinking we're bluffing a lot. It's good fun. I finished second in this tournament three years ago so it would be nice to improve on that."
Loosli wouldn't be the first Winamax Team Pro to have success here in Marrakech after Bruno Lopes took down the tournament two years ago. We asked him what winning the tournament would mean to him.
"It would be a nice accomplishment," he said, "It's not one of the biggest tournaments on the tour, but there are still a lot of good players. Naturally, it's not my main goal of the year, but it would be really nice to win. Winning a tournament is alway amazing. I mean, you can only win a certain amount of tournaments a year."
The Winamax stable of Team Pros has been growing steadily with the acquisitions of Leo Margets, Joao Vieira, and Mustapha Kanit, but Loosli says that there is still a real community atmosphere among the Team.
"We had a seminar before EPT Monte Carlo with the new guys; it was really cool to get together for a few days. We did a few activities, talked poker and mental game. That kind of stuff and got to know each other a little bit more. There's a really strong team spirit, which is good. It's very important in poker, it's nothing new for me to say, but it's important to have a group of people you can work with and share things with. That's really nice."
These players will resume play at midday on Saturday, but there is one more Day 1 for players to play in their attempt to make Day 2. That kicks off at midday May 12th with a further 14 levels played.
Stay tuned to PokerNews.com for live updates from the final Winamax SISMIX starting day, with organizers eyeing a record crowd, with 1,078 the number to beat from the 2017 Main Event.
