We have results in from the WPT event at France's famous Aviation Club, plus more updates from Pokerstars' WCOOP
WPT Paris
Despite the fact that tournaments filled with French players tend to make for some of the softer fields on the poker tour, it was a fairly modest attendance of just 228 who took their seats at the €7,500 WPT eventin the Aviation Club, Paris. However soft the tournament as a whole might have been though, the six handed final table was certainly packed with talent as between them Philipp Gruissem, Timothy Adams, Matt Salsberg, Theo Jorgensen, Fabian Quoss and Mohsin Charania had accumulated in excess of $10 million worth of live tournament cashes going into this event.
Having won the corresponding tournament in 2010, Jorgensen looked to be in good shape to pick up a second WPT title when he took the chip lead early on the final day’s play. For a long time it looked like it was going to be the Dane’s day until, when facing Matt Salsberg heads up, he lost two pots in quick succession when all in pre flop with dominating hands. All of a sudden the tide had turned and a simple call with pocket queens against Jorgensen’s shove ended the day’s proceedings in favour of Salsberg. He collects €380,000 in prize money plus a $25,000 seat at the WPT grand final at the Bellagio.
WCOOP updates
The WCOOP continues apace at Pokerstars with too many winners to mention all of them, but there have been a few notable names picking up online bracelets in the past few days. In event 29 ($1050 NLHE) two players with massive online wins behind them decided to split the last two money spots evenly. When Full Tilt was running Adam Geyer used to crush the FTOPS events as csimmsux and he was back to terrorise the opposition as simmsux on Pokerstars, eventually taking second place. The man who beat him to the top spot was Stanislav “Illini213” Barshak, winner of the Sunday warm up amongst other things, collecting $225,490 for his latest win.
Event 36 ($200 NLHE with rebuys) was notable for the deep run of Dan “djk123” Kelly, already a winner of three WCOOP titles and one SCOOP. Eventually only auercan of Turkey stood between Kelly and a record breaking fourth WCOOP title, and it should come as no surprise that the offer of a deal proposed by the Turk when he held the chip lead was quickly rejected. Having got his nose in front, some players in Kelly’s position might have been tempted to then offer a deal of their own to lock down the record, but Kelly continued in style and played on until he had every chip in front of him. Another $138,355 is added to the Kelly funds, taking his profit on Pokerstars alone to over $1.2 million.
Someone who has won even more money on Pokerstars is Olivier Busquet (Adonis112 on Pokerstars, livb112 on Full Tilt) who has earned most of his cash from heads up sit n goes. Event 43 ($10,300 heads up NLHE) saw him take on some of the very best in the game, including fellow heads up specialist Isildur1. Whilst Isildur1 was the very first player to leave the tournament, Busquet was the last man standing after he managed to salvage a win on the river in the very last hand against Helio TYF to pocket another $224,000.
Eugene Katchalov managed a 5th place finish in this event to boost his leaderboard points total to 230, but it is mikal12345 of Norway who still leads the way in the player of the series race with 340 points. Katchalov’s prop bet opponent ElkY is still trailing behind with 120, and won’t have done his chances of winning the bet much good by going off to play live WPT events.