Friends Clash in One-Hand UDSO

The Unibet DeepStack Open Marrakech Main Event drew 766 entries at a buy-in of 6,000 MAD, and it ended with a heads-up battle between two players who have shared the Paris poker scene for two decades. Idir Haïche and Benoît Grobocopatel had never before met in a heads-up match for a title. When they finally did, in Marrakech, the duel lasted exactly one hand.

Haïche took the winner's belt and a first prize of 640,000 MAD, roughly €58,000. Grobocopatel collected 440,000 MAD for second place. The result carried extra weight for Haïche, who had previously finished fourth in the UDSO Main Event in Paris and described the combination of a title and a final against his closest friend as an exceptional experience.

A Long-Running Stop With a Big Field

Marrakech has been a regular stop for the DeepStack Open since 2010, and the festival at Casino de Marrakech again attracted a large international field. The 766-entry Main Event produced a final table that took more than an hour to lose its first player, with the eight finalists jostling for position before the eliminations began.

Audrey Verlomme, a French player living in Marrakech, started the final table with the shortest stack but survived the opening knockouts. She eventually finished fifth for 165,000 MAD, which the tournament report describes as her highest recorded financial result.

Alexis Nouel was the first player eliminated from the final table, followed by Medhi Bennani. David Paris finished sixth. The player known as TunisianKing took third place for 300,000 MAD, and Rabah Ait Abdelmalek finished fourth for 215,000 MAD.

The Kings Versus Aces Turning Point

Haïche began the final day as chipleader, but the early stages gave little hint of how quickly the tournament would conclude. One of the decisive moments came when his pocket kings held against the pocket aces of Rabah Ait Abdelmalek. Winning that confrontation significantly strengthened Haïche's position in the title race and sent Abdelmalek out in fourth place.

From there the field narrowed to two players whose history together stretches back twenty years, long before this festival. Both had waited a long time for such a moment on the same final stage. The resolution, when it arrived, was almost immediate.

One Hand, One River Decision

The heads-up match was decided on the first hand. On a board of T♥ 4♦ J♠ K♠ 5♥, Haïche moved all-in for an overbet of 18 million into a pot of about 10 million, holding K♦ 7♣ for top pair. Grobocopatel, holding Q♥ T♦, went deep into the tank before calling. The call ended the tournament and gave Haïche the belt.

The hand illustrates a common dynamic in short-handed and heads-up play: when stacks are deep relative to the pot, an overbet shove can put maximum pressure on a opponent holding a marginal made hand. In this case Grobocopatel's pair of tens had to decide whether Haïche was value-betting a king or turning a missed draw into a bluff. Such spots are often described in solver terms as near-indifferent, meaning the correct call or fold depends heavily on how the opponent's range is constructed. This particular decision went against the caller.

Final Table Results

• 1st: Idir Haïche (France) — 640,000 MAD (about $65,862)
• 2nd: Benoît Grobocopatel (France) — 440,000 MAD (about $45,280)
• 3rd: TunisianKing — 300,000 MAD (about $30,873)
• 4th: Rabah Ait Abdelmalek — 215,000 MAD (about $22,125)
• 5th: Audrey Verlomme (France) — 165,000 MAD (about $16,980)
• 6th: David Paris — 105,000 MAD (about $10,805)
• 7th: Medhi Bennani — 85,000 MAD (about $8,747)
• 8th: Alexis Nouel — 70,000 MAD (about $7,204)

Currency conversions reflect the figures reported alongside the local prize amounts and will vary with exchange rates.

What the Result Means

For Haïche, the win closes a circle that began with a deep run in Paris and ended with a title against a friend he has played with for twenty years. For the UDSO, the Marrakech stop continues to deliver large fields and international final tables, reinforcing its place on the DeepStack Open schedule since 2010. For Grobocopatel, the runner-up finish is a reminder of how thin the margin can be when two players who know each other's games meet at the end of a long tournament.

The tournament also highlighted the value of patience with a short stack. Verlomme's fifth-place finish came from surviving the early final-table eliminations rather than from accumulating chips, a reminder that in deep-stack structures, simply outlasting opponents can carry real financial weight.