Day 1B kicks off

Play gets underway with just over 80 players in the 100-100 blinds, the only no-ante level of the tournament.

Twelve 30-minute levels are on the schedule, with four levels and two hours of poker to be played before the first break. Half an hour to recharge your batteries from 6 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.!

Late registration ends before the first game of level 10, just after 10 p.m. on Day 1B. Dinner break between 8.30 and 9.30 p.m.... End of the day just after 11.30 p.m. on the second day of the €250 warm-up.

Day 1C Turbo (12 levels of 15 minutes each) starts at 9 p.m., with 8 levels to start, a short break and 4 levels behind. Registration is open until the end of level 9, at around 23:35...

On Thursday's opening day, 26 of the 120 players who entered validated their ticket for Day 2, which begins on Saturday at 14:00 on blinds 2000 - 4000 (4000). 

Toujours Plus

It took just under a quarter of an hour of play to cross the line. 100 players seated at the Circus Casino Resort tables in Namur. Still no outgoing players on the 100 - 100 blinds, and players still arriving. 

Among those present right from the start, Arnaud Danes Retry his luck after an unsuccessful Day 1a just like Alaatitn Sulan or the titleholder Morgan Poisson.

Taner Ayhan, Romain Becker, Maradona Abaz, Lukas Trzincski, Nikolas Wicquart, Gaetan Schnepf or Ludovic Ruperto is also already in the game. As are David Ethuin and former croupier Anthony Bui Ngoc....

No Miracle for Moise

The first level ended with 117 players in contention for 117 entrants... it took less than a minute on blinds 100 - 200 (200) to finally have an elimination.

Moise Alloun went all-in on the flop with a straight draw on both ends in a preflop 4-bet pot and Cedric Domingos paid ace-king high to hold and climb to 60,000 chips!

Preflop, Cedrik opened 600 with Ace King of clubs and 4-bet to 6,600 chips after Moise raised to 1,500 with King Queen suit. The dealer unwrapped a Jack Ten 6 flop with a club and Moise pushed just under 25,000 chips after a continuation bet to 6,000 chips.

"It was my first hand, he wanted to test me, I thought the King was good, the Ace too," explains Cedrik as he was the first to climb to 60,000 chips.

Since then, Dorian Liegois has taken on Patrick Casimotro to climb to 68,000 chips and overtake him. William Ralston also got off to a good start, reaching 54,000 in chips, after beating Philipp Steinmann. The German forfeited 2,100 jtons to re-enter! 

Still growing


The blinds have just climbed to 100 - 300 (300) for a stack of 100bb for those who still have the starting stack. The table now shows 131 players in the field for 138 entrants on Day 1b of the €250 Namur Classics Warm-Up.

Fedele Ricotta is back, Antonius Roberts is on his way, and many Namur regulars have decided to throw themselves into the battle this Easter Friday. Dominique Potenza, Thursday's Mix Game winner Kevin Pietquin, Robin Onati and Angelo Mancuso have also found their way to the poker room.

Raf Ielegems, Dovidio Monaco, Jeff Hemmer, Claudio Guadagnino, Philippe Dosogne, Marceau Dethiere and Gregory Dewinne are also in the game, while the average is 31,500 chips after an hour's play...

Guarantee Exceeded

With 5 minutes left to play on level 3, blinds will climb to 200 - 400 (400) with now 145 players in the running for 159 entrants. With the 120 entries for Day 1a, the €50,000 guaranteed prize pool has been wiped out, and there's now €56,470 to share in the prizepool.

The average is 33,000 chips after 90 minutes of poker .Jean Cruccas, Crhistophe Colantoni, Benjamin Celaudoux, David Olurebi, Stefan Aerts, Salvatore Alessi, Tetiana Kovalchuk and Michiho Onizuka are at the tables at the Circus Casino Resort in Namur... 

60,000€ in the kitty

The field continues to grow on Day 1b of the €250 Warm-Up Namur Classics. The counter shows 150 players in contention for 170 entrants with a few minutes left to play on 200 - 400 (400) before a break.

As usual in Namur, the first break will last 30 minutes, just to decompress. For Valentin Bury, Sami Agel and a few others who have just arrived, there'll be a bar to wait for them! 

Break

Resuming at 6:30 p.m. on blinds 300 - 600 (600) with 151 players in the running and 183 registered so far. The average will be 36,000 with a prize pool approaching €62,000...

Chips
William Ralston 98,000
Julien Lauer 93,000
Moise Alloun 87,000
ippolito Rocchetti 83,000
Michael Passy 82,000
Xavier Salcede 80,000
Sabri Philipps 75,000
David Janssen 69,000
Kazuya Ogino 67,000
Antonius Roberts 67,000
Remy Florean 67,000
Dennis Jacobs 62,000
Maxime Fontaine 60,000
Xavier Dupuy 59,000
Sami Agel 59,000
Dorian Liegois 55,000
Outmane El Amarani 45,000
Philippe Merckx 43,000
Tetiana Kovalchuk 32,000
Morgan Poisson 31,000
Ludovic Ruperto 19,000

Over 200 entries

The 2023 affluence could well be wiped out as the counter shows 163 players in the running for 202 registered players while blinds rise to 400 - 800 (800) on this Day 1B of the €250-entry Warm-Up Namur Classics.

The average is flirting with 40,000 chips, registration is open until 10:05 p.m. and the first deal of level 10, heading for 400 entries! 

Top 150

They've come, they're all here... except for the re-entries, the counter is unlikely to increase too much on Day 1b. There are still 150 players in the running for the second of the three opening days, with 218 entries so far. The prize pool has provisionally climbed to just under €70,000.

Michael Passy continues his fine form, with 117,000 chips now in his pocket, a fortune with an average of 44,000 chips and blinds at 500 - 1000 (1000).

Just to his left, Morgan Poisson may have just (re)launched the conquest. Morgan has just taken out an opponent after opening the cutoff with Dame Valet. His opponent put the rest of his micro-stack on Valet 9 Valet with 6 and 9 suit... enough for the winner of the 2023 edition (for a €12,000 payout) to continue to believe in his lucky star and climb to 65,000 pawns. 

L'Apéro

Some players were in a hurry to get to the dinner break, but there were only 135 left (out of 227 entrants) at the start of level 8, which will be contested over blinds 600 - 1200 (1200).

The hour-long dinner break will begin in half an hour's time, also time for a chiprace to make the 100 chips disappear. Laura Wautelet has been spotted in the field, as have Jorden Verbraeken, Gaetanbo Morecci, Fathi Khalfaoui and Anne Trebitsch. Fabio Percio and Francesco Pillitteri are also in the game on this second opening day.

Registration closes at 10 p.m., so you'll have to join Turbo 1c, which starts at 9 p.m., to dream of taking part in the weekend and Day 2, which kicks off on Saturday at 2 p.m. in blinds 2000 - 4000 (4000). In the meantime, it's time for a Tripick! 

Checkpoint

With 15 minutes to go before the break, will Rens Buijs make it that far? The young man went all in after an open from Gaetano Moreci and a 19,600-strong stack from Ralf Werner. In the small blind, Rens put up 24,000 pawns with 6's and took Gaetano through...

Ralf flips Ace-Queen and hits a Queen to climb to 45,000, just below the 53,000-chip average. There are 126 players left for 228 entries with dinner just around the corner . Laura Wautelet seems to have given up whileAnne Trebitsch got off to a bad start with 18,000 pawns in front of her.

Julien Lauer (135,000), William Ralston (90,000), Lucas Derpin (100,000), and Dennis Jacobs (160,000) continued their fine day. Things are also going well for David Ethuin (73,000) and Michael Passy (117,000), while David Olurebi (39,000), Greg van der Weckene (28,000) and Miguel Coussement (32,000) have yet to really get the ball rolling... 

Dinner Break

The dinner break is underway, resuming at 9.30pm on blinds 1000 - 1500 (1500) for the 9th level, the last to register for this Day 1b of the Namur Classics Warm Up.

For the time being, 113 players are still in the running for 230 entries. This should bring the provisional attendance to 350 before Turbo 1c, which starts at 11 p.m. (late registration until around 11.30 p.m., editor's note). The prize pool for the €250 Event #2 of the Namur Classics has risen to €74,000 so far...

A chiprace is also underway, with 100 chips disappearing from this opening tournament. Rens Buijs and Anne Trebitsch also disappeared before the dinner break...

Chips
Zakaria Ibrir 160,000
Dennis Jacobs 153,000
Julien Lauer 145,000
Lukas Trzcinski 137,000
Aldebert Buhl 135,000
Ataman Okuklu 129,000
Gianni Vandyck 128,000
Bogdan Petrascu 128,000
Hernan Benito Castro 127,000
David Janssen 121,000
Sabri Philips 106,000
Dorian Liegeois 105,000
Xavier Salcede 96,000
William Ralston 92,000
Fatih Ozer 88,000
Jonathan Hamon 86,000
Francesco Pillitteri 85,000
Lucas Durpin 82,000
David Ethuin 81,000
Salvatore Alessi $80,000
Ionut Chiriac 78,000
David Olurebi 73,000
Taner Ayhan 71,000
Jeffrey Jol 71,000
Edouard Graton 69,000
Morgan Poisson 54,000
Benjamin Celadoux 40,000
Ralf Werner 38,000
Greg van der Weckene 31,000
Gaetano Moreci 7,000

Restart

The last two hours of poker on Day 1b have begun at the Circus Casino Resort in Namur. At the start of the 9th level, there were 114 entries for 231, the last to register for this second day of the Namur Classics Warm-Up at 250€ per entry.

The prize pool is close to €80,000, and the record attendance of 399 entries from the previous edition is in sight with 351 entries, while Day 1c Turbo (12 levels of 15 minutes, editor's note) started at 9 p.m. with around 40 players. On this flight, registration will be open until 11.30 p.m....

231 makes 405, a record for the Warm-Up

The blinds have been raised to 1000 - 2000, and registration is closed with 94 players in the running, resulting in 231 entries for the second of the three opening days of the €250 Warm Up Namur Classics.

With the 120 entries for Day 1a and the 54 entries for Turbo 1c currently underway (registration until 11.30 p.m.), last year's record attendance has been erased. Gone are the 399 entrants from 2023, and there are currently 405 buy-in €250 players in Event #2 of the festival. The prize pool now stands at €82,000...

Tristan Karr will be hoping for a share on Saturday, Day 2. Tristan has just tripled up with Aces against 9s for Cedric Domingos and Valet Dix suité for Christos Triantaphyllou. Christos busted after a 4-Queen-3-King board when he was taking on 14,000 chips. His 7 blinds are now spinning, while Cedrik Domingos, one of the first to double up on Day 1B, has no margin left at 20 blinds... Karr climbs close to 40 blinds.

Another all-in 3-shot at table 28... with Fathi Khalfaoui as enforcer. Fathi cracks Ace-King and Antonius Roberts' Jacks with Ace-2 of clubs. His flush raises to 120,000 as Christophe Ille joins the rail. On the next hand, Fathi opens with Ace 8 of clubs, a player calls and Antonius Roberts puts in his last 8 blinds with King 8 suited. Fathi pays, accompanied by an ironic "ggod call" from Antonius, who folds one board 9 Jack 6 8 Aces later. And 150,000 in the bag for Fathi Khalfaoui, in the money on the Winter and Carnival Main since the start of the year. Three-way pass on the cards?

In the meantime, Taner Ayhan (100,000), Javier Dominguez (120,000) and Sabri Philips (140,000) continue to make their way through the field... well away from the current boss,Teddy Fortier, who's up to 250,000 chips with just under 90 minutes to go. 

Last Hour

The blinds are now 1000 - 2500 (2500), the penultimate level of the second opening day of the €250 Warm Up Namur Classics. There are 82 players left for an average of 84,000 chips, and Christos Triantaphyllou is back at the tables... he's back with 8,000 chips in front of him. For a chip-level comeback too?

For Florin Popescu, Wim Verhaegen, Ionut Chiriac, Moise Alloun, Julien Lauer or Jimmy Charpentier and Jonathan Bost, there's no alternative: to join Day 2, which starts on Saturday at 2 p.m. in blinds 2000 - 4000 (4000), you'll have to make it to Day 1c.

Filou

Christos Triantaphyllou left the play area after a preflop all-in 3-shot... he ran off to register for Day 1c before realizing he still had chips. Returning to 1b with 7,000 of his 14,000 remaining after this preflop all-in loss, he doubled up once more to 19,000 chips.

Here, he found himself all-in with Ace King of Diamonds against Ace King of Spades at Tristan Karr. A Jack 7 8 Queen Jack board with a diamond on the flop, a diamond turn and a diamond river gave him 45,000 chips! Despite this setback, Karr still has 170,000 in chips... on the previous hand he had found a big double-up with Kings against Ace-Kings preflop!

At the other tables, with around 40 minutes to go, David Olurebi (155,000), Benjamin Celaudoux (170,000) and Lukas Trzcinski (190,000) got into action. They are ahead of the field, which averages 101,000 chips with 69 players in the running.

Francesco Pillitteri (below during his Carnival 2024 deep-run, editor's note), Ludovic Ruperto, Sami Agel and Miguel Coussement gave up the fight in the final minutes. 

Final Level

64 players compete in blinds 1500 - 3000 (3000) for the final level of Day 1B. The average is 108,000 chips and Jeff Hemmer has just jumped. Jean-François disappeared a few minutes after playing a flip to 120,000 chips... his Ace-King lost to a pair of 7s.

Finito also on this second opening day for Gaetan Schnepf, Lucas Derpin, Christophe Colantoni, Jens Daems and Edouard Graton... 

Final Sprint

With 14 minutes left on the clock, the announcement of the last hands to be played will be made shortly. 60 players remain in the running, with an average of 115,000 chips. With 25,000 in chips, Christos Triantaphyllou is still believing... he jumped out of Day 1c a few seconds ago with his ace-ten crashing into ace-queen at Greg van der Wecken's house. With 25,000 pawns on this second opening day, he'll probably put everything in the middle to double in-extremis!

The man who doesn't need to double up is Sabri Philips. The Dutchman has seen his stack explode in the last hour, having quickly built up 4-5 times the starting stack before raising King Jack and finding a straight draw on both ends on a Queen Ten 4 flop. His straight went in on the turn and all went to the middle on that 9 against a villain with Queen Ten. No double up to suck in 80,000 on the turn and set off for the top.

Sabri then raised King-Queen suit from the cutoff to find a Queen-Queen 8 flop and again three bets to glean big. Philips checked-called the flop against the button, checked-raised the turn and then bet the river to top 350,000 chips with a few minutes to go, well ahead of the chipcount. 

56 qualifiers on Day 1b, Sabri Philips crushes the competition


Day 1B of the €250 Warm Up Namur Classics drew 231 entries, with 56 players making it through the 12 30-minute levels. This provisionally brings the contingent of qualifiers for Day 2, which begins on Saturday at 2pm in blinds 2000 - 4000 (4000), to 82 survivors. This figure will change with the end of Day 1c Turbo, at around midnight 20...

The Sabri Philips (above) who widened the gap at the head of the field. The Dutchman has raised 441,500 chips, almost 15 times his starting stack, and will be the only player to return to Day 2 with more than 100 blinds. Despite a fine day, Benjamin Celaudoux, Lukas Trzcinski, Jackie Hu and Fatih Ozer finished well behind the tournament boss.

Titleholder, Morgan Poisson is still in the running, and will leave with 15 blinds on Day 2, still in the hunt for the back-to-back. He will be joined by David Ethuin, David Olurebi, Gaetano Moreci, Bernard Jensen and Taner Ayhan in the race for the money... the prize pool to be shared on Saturday will be over €85,000! 

This also applies to Ludovic Ingenito (below), Xavier Dupuy, Teddy Fortier, Adi Buhl, Marceau Dethiere and Tristan Karr... in an increasingly cosmopolitan field. The Germans were out in force today, but there was also a Scottish player, a Japanese player and a player from the United Arab Emirates.

Chipcount partial Day 1B
Sabri Philips 441,500
Fatih Ozer 271,000
David Olurebi 270,000
Lukas Trzcinski 262,500
gael Lesage 257,000
Jackie Hu 225,000
benjamin Celadoux 225 000
Ludovic Ingenito 217 000
Teddy Fortier 177 500
Xavier Dupuy 176 000
Gaetano Moreci 169 000
Tristan Karr 143 000
Polle Westbroek 141 000
Thorben Buehne 139 500
Claudio Guadgnino 139 500
Euan Ralston 137 000
Javier Poveda 130 000
Bogdan Petrascu 123 000
Adi Buhl 120 000
Dennis Jacobs 111 500
Dirk Brandt 103,500
David Ethuin 95,000
Michael Passy 93,000
Jonathan Hamon 92,000
Taner Ayhan 87,000
Marceau Dethiere 83,000
Dorian Liegeois 57,000
Bernard Jensen 47,500

The full chipcount and redraw in the Day 2 livecast as soon as possible...