The Golden Poker Million Marrakech, scheduled to be held March 13-22 in the Casino de Marrakech in the Es Saadi Resort, was canceled on Saturday due to government-imposed restrictions to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The last-minute event pulling is the latest in a series of mass-cancelations of events across the globe in recent days, including high-profile ones such as the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, as well as poker stops like the Triton Super High Roller Series in Jeju.

In a statement released by the direction of the Casino de Marrakech on March 7, the tour's host said that 'for reasons beyond our own will' the event will be off the calendar. According to the statement, in order to prevent the coronavirus to spread, the Moroccan authorities have prohibited all events for the whole month of March that involve the participation of persons coming from abroad, and the casino follows suit by pulling their event off the calendar.

It's been five days since the first official coronavirus case was established in the northern African country, with a second case identified days later.

Read the full statement from Casino de Marrakech below.

The beautiful Casino de Marrakech at the Es Saadi resort is ready for Day 1b of the WPTDeepStacks Main Event. After 213 players joined proceedings yesterday, plenty more will jump into the field to start their journey to become the latest WPTDS champion.

WPT Barcelona Continues As Planned; Guarantees Removed

Meanwhile, the World Poker Tour came out with a statement of their own regarding the continuation of their upcoming WPT Barcelona festival, slated to run March 22-April 5 in Casino Barcelona in conjunction with partypoker LIVE.

While the event is currently planned to continue as scheduled, earlier announced guarantees have been removed from all events in anticipation of lower attendance numbers due to the coronavirus.

1. Es Saadi Gardens & Resort Rue Ibrahim el Mazini. +212 6 60 21 08 06. Contact by email. Casino de Marrakech poker tournaments. Saturday Nov 14, 2020.
2. The beautiful Casino de Marrakech at the Es Saadi resort is ready for Day 1b of the WPTDeepStacks Main Event. After 213 players joined proceedings yesterday, plenty more will jump into the field.

The company put out the following statement on their website and Facebook page:

Casino Marrakech Es Saadi Poker Room

'Dear players,

We’ve had many discussion the last few days with all the parties involved for the upcoming events and we considered various options including cancellation.

The WPT Barcelona festival will continue as scheduled from March 22-April 5 at Casino Barcelona in partnership with partypoker LIVE.

Unfortunately, due to the ongoing concerns with COVID-19, balanced with our ongoing approach of keeping the best interests of our players in mind, we regret that we will no longer be able to offer guarantees for this event.

Qualifiers to earn WPT Passports for the WPT Barcelona festival will continue to run on partypoker all the way up to the beginning of the festival. Passports are also valid for WPT UK in September and WPT Montreal in October.

Casino Barcelona has assured us that ample sanitization products will be available during the festival and will provide for a clean playing environment.'

Will the 2020 WSOP Continue As Planned?

Casino Marrakech Es Saadi Poker Online

The Golden Poker Million cancelation is the latest poker series to be added to the rapidly growing list of events pulled due to the COVID-19 threat. Just days ago, the plug was pulled on Malta's Siege of Malta as well as the Malta Poker Championships, both citing 'the need to safeguard the health of players and staff' as a priority. Earlier, the Triton Super High Roller Series was scrapped from the schedule, as well as WPT events in Asia.

King's Resort in Rozvadov announced a radical policy by banning all Italian players for an undisclosed amount of time. Italy is the European country currently affected the most by the coronavirus. On Friday evening, another sharp increase in casualties occurred, with Italy's civil protection agency in Rome reporting 49 new fatalities, leaving 90 dead in the span of just 48 hours.

With the coronavirus continuing to spread, the poker world keeps its fingers tightly crossed in the hopes the 2020 World Series of Poker will be unaffected. Earlier, Vice President of Corporate Communications for the WSOP Seth Palansky confirmed that the World Series of Pokerare monitoring the situation closely, but as of now, it's business as usual with WSOP events and schedules remaining intact and planned to go on without interruption.

However, since the statement, the first cases of corona in the state of Nevada were identified, confirming the virus is spreading closer to the WSOP's Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. Still, Vegas-based poker series such as the Wynn Spring Classic that's currently ongoing and reported by PokerNews, remain unaffected as of now.

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  Golden Poker Million

Es Saadi Resort is one of the great wonders of Marrakech, the fourth-largest city in the glorious Morrocan kingdom. What makes this property even better is that it is home to some really important poker events, the most popular one being perhaps the World Series of Poker Circuit.

In fact, one such festival wrapped up recently, after the Main Event took place. It took place in Casino de Marrakech, which is part of the Es Saadi Resort, and it required the buy-in of 15,000 MAD, which is equivalent to €1,400.

The event was filled with great poker action, but one player managed to beat all his opponents. His name is Samiyel Duzgun, and he successfully claimed the title in the end, receiving the monetary award of 1,600,000 MAD (€150,400).

However, the more important thing is that he received his first WSOPC gold ring. On top of all that, the player won a free seat for the 2020 World Series of Poker Global Championship.

Duzgun’s victory is an important one as he proved that cash game poker players can also be very successful in tournament poker if they are good enough. The player from Switzerland decided to test his luck and skills in another form of the game, which is tournament poker, and it seems that he has been doing pretty well so far.

His previous tournament poker success was in December when he took part in the Golden Poker Million Cyprus Main Event. Duzgun made it to the final table and ended up seventh, winning a total of €19,900 along the way. Perhaps he returns to Casino de Marrakech in March when Golden Poker visits this property on March 13-22.

It was only natural that Duzgun was very excited about topping the Main Event of a WSOPC tournament. He stated that he was very tired but also very happy about the victory.

Moreover, he added that he had enjoyed playing the game along the way. Finally, Duzgun stated that the tournament itself had been very enjoyable, but that he had also found people and staff very nice.

It seems that the Swiss was really enjoying the tournament, stating that he would return even if he didn’t win the event.

But Duzgun was not the only poker player in this great tournament. Many other players also joined the Main Event in their effort to win the title.

Let’s see who else made it to the very end — the final table.

Final Table Results — Funny Nicknames and Great Poker

The first thing that’s very interesting about this Main Event is that some players used nicknames instead of their real names. That way, “Grolo Grolovic,” another player from Switzerland, was the first to hit the rail, winning 170,000 MAD along the way.

He was soon followed by Imad Derwiche, a player from France who managed to win 200,000 MAD. Rui Bouquet from Portugal ended up seventh for 240,000 MAD, and the next one to hit the rail was another Frenchman by the name of Marc Poustis, winning 300,000 MAD.

Another nicknamed player, named “Igna Poker,” ended up fifth for 380,000 MAD. The Spaniard was followed by another person from the same country nicknamed “TMV” for 500,000 MAD.

The last player to hit the rail before the heads-up was Edouard Piquet from France. Piquet won a total of 700,000 MAD.

The opponent for Duzgun in the heads-up was Aymar Jarrar from Israel, who had to settle for second place, winning 1,060,000 MAD, which is approximately €99,640.