OMAR LAKHDARI VAINQUEUR DU BPC NAMUR (206 000 €)

Given the magnificent structure offered by the organizers of the Circus Casino Resort in Namur, it was fair to assume that this final table would last until the end of the night. And yet, once Omar Lakhdari's steamroller had started, everything accelerated. They were still 4 at dinner-break. 40 minutes later, Omar lifted the winner's trophy in front of his buddies who had come to support him.

An emblematic figure on the French poker scene, Omar is the player with the most indefinable profile. A real war machine when he's got the chips, capable of memorable blow-ups but above all of real genius moves, an all-round player far from the current GTO canon, practicing a poker exploiting hyper-efficiently on the middle buy-in fields.

This is his 29th victory on the live circuit, and the finest of all, with a win of €206,000, his biggest ever, just ahead of his 6th place finish on a WPT last year.

Today's final table was clearly a one-way affair, as Omar Lakhdari quickly found himself with a huge stack, eliminating respectively Jérôme Balthazar, Paolo Calculli, Benoît Grobocopatel and finally Tal Ohana (who took care of the others). Heads-up play was a mere formality for Omar Lakhdari, who needed just fifteen hands to finish off his opponent, thanks to a superb call to prove to his opponent that he wasn't the only one capable of making big calls.

As he said in an interview after his victory, Omar knew he had " an edge on this kind of field" with his exploitative game. " I knew I had a chance of winning the tournament since I eliminated a lot of very good players yesterday ".

Moved after posing for the winner's photo with his mates, Omar confided to me how much he appreciated this victory: " I didn't have any spades yet, I'd already won in Belgium, a WPT National. But this was a real thrill. I believed in it from the TF, I thought it was going to go well. "

On his final table performance, Omar was aware that it had been crystal clear. " It went straight through. I played the ICM well, there were a lot of them with players who had little performance on Hendon Mob. As soon as one of them raised me and there was a short-stack, I put on the maximum pressure. "

Omnipresent on the middle buy-in tournament scene between €500 and €2,000, Omar Lakhdari now has his sights set on EPTs and a fine Vegas. He was also delighted to be able to share this experience with Benoît Grobocopatel (5th in this BPC Namur):"We came together from Paris, and slept in the same room. We even slept on the floor in another room because we didn't know where to sleep. I wasn't too happy about eliminating him, but he doesn't have to be short-stacked. "

Both wearing the patch of the ADJ, l'Association Des Joueurs, which aims to help poker players on tournaments with everything to do with administration, buy-ins, hotels ... and help them improve things, Omar and Benoît were very happy to strike a blow here in Namur to wet the shirt for this non-profit association they have been supporting since the beginning.

Omar Lakhdari's victory concludes the Main Event of the Belgian Poker Challenge in Namur, an exceptional tournament in every respect, with record attendance figures of 1,332 entries for this 2023 edition, organized in partnership with PokerStars. Not officially a FPS tournament, but considered part of the France Poker Series circuit.

Final table results: