The Main kicks off at 4 p.m.

With over 2,800 entrants to the previous edition in 2023, the €250 Winter Festival Main Event kicks off this Sunday! 

Players receive 50,000 chips and will compete on progressive levels ranging from half an hour to 50 minutes for the Final Day... 

The €250,000 guarantee is set to explode once again at the Circus Casino Resort in Namur. 

Already over 200 registrations... before the start! 

Day 1A of the €250 Winter Festival Main Event is in full swing! The starting gun goes off in 7 minutes, and the leaderboard already shows 200 entrants. There are still plenty of people at the cashier, and with around a hundred players on the Sunday Special plus the Mystery Bounty participants, there's still a nice potential pool of unique players available at the Circus Casino Resort in Namur...

Can the Main Event be launched this Sunday with a 500+ entry day? 

300 unique players before the end of Level 1

Play began at blinds 100 - 200 (200) with a ton of players in contention on Day 1A of the €250-entry Winter Festival Main Event... the board showed 227 entrants at the start! 

Half an hour later, 300 players remain in the running for 303 entries... this first of the eight starting days promises to be epic!

13 half-hour levels are scheduled for the day, with a first 30-minute break between 4 and 4.30 p.m., after the first four levels of play. 

The dinner break was scheduled to take place between 8.30 and 9.45 pm, but will now be split in two so that everyone can eat in peace... we'll keep you posted as soon as possible on the distribution of groups and times. 

Levels will increase to 40 minutes on Day 2 and 50 minutes on Day 3, as the battle begins in Namur! 

Madness! 

There are some partout players, and some players are still arriving at the cash desk for their first entry to this Winter Festival at €250 a ticket. 

The 400-entry mark was passed after 1 hour and 15 minutes of play, on level 3 of Day 1A of the Main Event. Since then, level 4 has begun, with 393 players competing in a table showing 418 incoming ! 

There will be a thirty-minute break at the end of this level, between 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m... 

Break

After 4 levels and two hours of poker, the first break of the Winter Festival Main Event has begun. 387 players have left for the break, with a counter already showing 455 entrants!

The average will be 59,000 chips for the 400 - 800 resumption, and the dinner break has just been announced. The first group (made up of players from tables 18 to 46, editor's note) will take a 75-minute break after level 6, from 7.30pm to 8.45pm.

The second group (made up of tables 1 to 17 and above Table 101, editor's note) will play levels 7 and 8 before taking a break from 8.30pm to 9.45pm.

During the break for group 2, the first group will play levels 7 and 8... The junction will take place at the start of level 9, with registration closed for this first of the eight opening days.

Day 1A is scheduled for 13 half-hour levels, and should be pushed for probably an extra hour of play...

Dinner break (I)

A large half of the field is on break until 8:30 p.m., this group will resume on blinds 600 - 1200 (1200) for level 7 and will continue with level 8 while group 2 will in turn enjoy its dinner break.

The table now shows 370 players still in contention for 541 entrants. Registration for the first of the eight opening days will close at the end of the second dinner break, at around 9.45pm.

Here are a few stacks from the group currently on break. The big stacks have carburated after playing for 3 hours since the start!

Chips
Arnaud Vignier 245,000
Imad Abouabderrahmane 239,000
Abdel Benamrane 228,000
Jonathan Cardone 204,000
Yannick Loddo 204,000
Joris van Ewijk 200,000
Igor Gonzalez 193,000
Michele Galatola 175,000
Zoran Vucetic 173,000
Adrien Brihaye 170 000
Alessandro Licata 165 000
Thomas Joachim 146 000
Gary Priez 145 000
Rosario Agosta 143 000
Kurt Kisgen 130 000
Christian Hardenberg 129 000
Pieter Mathijssen 123 000
Martin Schneiders 122 000
Vincent de Vos 110 000
Emmanuel Remouville 105 000

Reprise

Level 9 is underway on Day 1A of the Winter Festival Main Event, with both groups having completed their separate dinner breaks. The table shows 331 players in contention for 587 entrants as play continues on 1000 - 2000 (2000). 

You'll need to pass 15 30-minute levels to qualify for Saturday's Day 2, which takes place over 40-minute levels. 

Here's a count of the stacks of players in the second group, those who had played 8 levels before heading off for a bite to eat. 

Chips
Guillaume Fontaine 290,000
Ethan Bugan 260,000
Ano Nymous 252,000
Yves Minkhorst 210,000
Antonio Almeida 200,000
Gabriel Iudicello 180,000
Michael Wachsler 176,000
Camino Giordano $170,000
Philippe Lestrade 165,000
Samuel Kagan 162,000
William Mansart 140,000
Willem de Jong 136,000
David Olurebi 135,000
Adrien Gwozdz 132,000
Bjorn Geleyn 122,000
Fransesco Lauria 115,000
Dennie Huijps 113,000
Eddy Sebastianotti 80,000

606 entries for the opening!

The first of the eight opening days of the €250 Winter Festival Main Event attracted 606 entries!

Level 10 is underway, with 292 players battling it out over blinds 1000 - 2500 (2500). 15 levels and a total of 7 and a half effective hours of poker. 

Last Break

Play will resume on blinds 2000 - 4000 (4000), and the survivors of the first 11 levels will contest two more hours of poker and 4 levels before packing up their chips for the rest of this Winter Festival Main Event. 

Day 1A brought together 606 entrants and there are still 217 to go in the final straight. Tadeusz Pitrzak seems to have taken the lead with a stack just under half a million chips. 

Martin Schneiders, Mathias Moutaoukil, Alain Fleurent, Salvatore Alessi, Anne Trebitsch, Tino de Zutter, Robin Fournez, Dieu Lam, Dino Marsani, Stéphane Minkov or Mike Niegho are still on the track at the end of the day... 

Ali Bulgin, Farukh Tach, Luigi Pacilli, Dang Nguyen, Raphael Canta and Walter van Camberg will have to try their luck again on one of the other 7 starting days...

Last Level 

While the Sunday Special ended with a surprising dealThe game continued in the main tournament.

30 minutes left to play on the first opening day of the Winter Festival. Day 1A of the Main Event still has 142 of the day's 606 entrants! 

The blinds are now 4000 - 8000 (8000) and the average is 213,000 chips. Koen Rothheut has just moved all in thanks to a click-back with Aces in the big blind. The opener went all in (for 25 blinds) right at the end of the hand with 7s and 8s all in, and didn't do a darn thing! 

Daniel Veloson, Chau Han Soo, Dalil Masaud, Tino de Zutter, Heidi Croone, Stéphane Minkov, Philippe Lestrade and Badre Al Ghouche have all joined the rail and will have to try again. 

Chipcount Complete Day 1A

Players: 101/601

Next Blind: 5,000-10,000(10,000)

Average: 300.000

Gary Priez King of a busy Day 1A

The first of eight starting days for the €250 Winter Festival Main Event was fully booked on Sunday at the Circus Casino Resort in Namur. The organization collected 606 entries to launch this tournament towards the 3,000-entry mark. and a huge prize pool! 

Although 13 half-hour levels were scheduled, the participants on this opening day finally played out 15 levels. This was enough to bring the field down to 101 players, particularly at the end of a crazy last level where there was just over one player leaving every minute.

 

Gary Priez (above) had already done the job, he was able to manage and continue sucking quietly as he had been since the start. The Frenchman is in a good rush; on Saturday he had deal head's up on Speed Riding ! After a return to Valenciennes and a short night, this daddy came back to finally bag 808,000 chips. The Frenchman will have 80 blinds when he resumes play on Saturday at 2pm in blinds 5000 - 10,000 (10,000), logically very close to the money. 

Priez pulled ahead of many, but not Warm Up winner Stefaan Skippers (below). The Belgian finished hot on the King's heels... with 794,000 in chips on the restart he'll have plenty to do his less well-off opponents too. 



Anne Trebitsch, Patrick Prijot, Michele Galatola, Jeroen Buls, Martin Schneiders, Gilles Masaud, Alain Fleurent, David Olurebi and Min Sung Lee are also on board... 

Partial Chipcount Day 1A
Gary Priez 808,000
Stefaan Skippers 794,000
David Olurebi 668,000
Jeroen Buls 648,000
Roman Langner 598,000
Ruben Fach 590,000
Patrick Hutch 531,000
Martin Schneiders 523,000
Tdeusz Pietrzak 513,000
Michele Galatola 487,000
Anne Trebitsch 457,000
ALain Fleurent 446,000
Vincent Gabel 429,000
Gilles Masaud 418,000
Clyde Tjaw Foe 397,000
Christian Tonnelier 380,000
Patrick Prijot 379,000
Sofiane El Yachou 367,000
Min Sung Lee 313,000
Kung Hoaviet 308,000
Koen Rothheut 303,000
Yves Sergeant 285,000
David Gaillard 270,000
Jorge Oliveira 227,000
Ivo Hermans 200,000
Theo Millioni 157,000
Yves Minkhorst 147,000