| Game Type: | No Limit |
| Buy-in: | €10,000 |
| Prize Pool: | €2,204,000 |
| Entries: | 217 |
| Rebuys: | no |
WPT – Rendez-vous a Paris
In the early days of blonde updates, I recall the summer in Paris to have been one of the most enjoyable times and places to follow the poker crowd. And eat nice food, hang around with tikay by the 24hr cash games and saunter casually along in the sunshine in between. So it was with pleasure that I booked some last minute accommodation (harder than you can imagine) for my set of update partners, and prepared to alternately roast and shiver, while casting a mellow yet unavoidably envious eye on the fantastically-structured event itself.
The only WPT tournament to be held in Europe finally realised it was a little too big for one sweaty start day, and the 217 players who qualified, satellited or just ponied up the €10,000 entry had been divided. This was great news for tikay and me (blonde team #1), only slightly offset by the exponential growth in reporters and photographers who roosted on one sheet-covered poker table in the room we generally refer to as The Corridor. Finding a space to perch was a matter of showing up before the other 15 guys, and perfecting the polite, “pardon,” as we shoved past the velvet ropes to get a look at the tables was a necessity.
The first day wasn’t so bad, space-wise, however grumbly tikay may have gotten, and we soon settled down into the rhythm of the day, which contained five 90 minute(!) levels, during which players made the most of their 15,000 starting chips. I had been lucky enough to online qualify for this event once, two years ago, and it really is an extraordinary tournament, which feels like it has the potential to run almost infinitely. That’s fantastic to play, but what would it be like to update this time round? We foresaw at least a few hours of low-blind/monstrous stack slowness, but it was not to be.
While locating the players we knew would be playing Day 1a (and sorting out registration for last minute deciders Rob Yong and Simon Nowab) we spotted El Blondie, Padraig Parkinson, Rob Hollink, Joe Beevers, Tony Chessa, Kirill Gerasimov, Mark Teltscher, Noah Boeken and many more stuffed into the bar area behind the bit of hallway I like to call the Backgammon Bottleneck. Unworried by the danger that it might start at 4pm on the dot, I wandered out for lunch, and tikay covered the seat-taking and chip allocation, snapping pics of Nottingham Nick Gibson, Mark ‘Mr. Cool’ Goodwin, and a certain Phil Hellmuth as they found their way in.
It wasn’t long before a table we’d marked for action (containing Nick, Marc, Sverre, Henrik Olander and John Duthie) supplied that very commodity. Sverre got a chunk of Marc Goodwin’s stack with a King high flush against what tikay suggested was very little, and then a three-way all-in occurred. Henrik, John Duthie and Mr. Cool all saw a third heart fall on the turn, which made the board 7-high and very flushy. No-one could have expected the action to kick off like this though – John bet, Marc 
called, then Henrik pushed all-in. John called and after a lengthy dwell, Marc called too with his King-high flush, beating Henrik’s Queen-high one, but pipped by John’s nut flush. So we had a very early, very large-stacked chip leader in the form of Mr. EPT himself (whom we’d bumped into on the Eurostar earlier that morning) and two early exiters.
Young Swede Ramzi Jelassi also had a good start (fresh as he may or may not have been from coming second in Helsinki hours previously), up to 31k after a pair of Nines took around 10k from new-lady-on-the-block Vanessa Rousso, paid after hitting a river set. Losing with KK didn’t tilt her too much, it appeared, as she made Day 2 along with Ramzi, and only just missed the money. Elsewhere Phil Hellmuth was building up a nice lead on his table, and love him or hate him, he was one of the top chip-gatherers of the day. The Devilfish exited after he found an opponent couldn’t be persuaded to lay down his KK to 58 on a 5 6 7 board, and we saw him at the bar. Incidentally, Danafish is in the process of reviewing Des Wilson’s new poker book “Swimming with the Devilfish” so keep an eye on blonde.
The Climber of the Day award went to Tony Chessa, who turned a tiny stack into an end-of-day decent tower, while somewhere around the dinner break a few other well-known tournament hoppers like Johnny Lodden, Achilleas Kallakis and Henning Granstad went out. Before rounding off Day 1a, Padraig Parkinson’s AA laydown has to get a mention. On a board of A 10 6 J (two hearts) there were three players left in, including Padraig with his top set. But the player in front of him bet out 8,000, and after he eventually pushed his hand away, the player after him moved in, was called, and they both showed down the nut straight. “Thank you God!” muttered Padraig as an 8h fell on the river, leaving the board pairless.
Right before the end of the day there were a couple of late casualties – Nick Gibson racing his AJ against 88 (unsuccessfully) and Isabelle Mercier, who’d steadily increased her chips from the start of the day, and was unexpectedly spotted heading for the exit moments before the end of play. I don’t actually blame players in the tiring later stages for just wanting to chill out when busted rather than come and talk over the details of their exit with the vulture-like bloggers. Like Snoopy.
The next fresh start found more blondeites and Brits in general taking their places – tikay muttered conspiratorially about France being in the World Cup that day. Along with Dave Colclough, Julian Thew, Ben Grundy, Rob Yong, Simon Nowab, John Kabbaj and Willie Tann came Matt Tyler, who’d decided at the last possible minute to use his home-made satellite cash to buy on in. Well, that’s an ever-great idea in my opinion – you don’t need to play actual specific satellites for big events – just run your own – single or multi-table, even cash, just with a promise to self that the money, if you win it, goes on a nice big juicy event, like this one.
It was also Champions Day, with Thomas Middelthon, John Gale, Jani Sointula and Surinder Sunar playing, as well as defending champ for this very event Roland de Wolfe. There appeared to be little pockets of our well-known players, like on Tony G’s table, where he found himself to be the button when small and big blinds were Stuart Fox and John Kabbaj. And somehow Thewy and Simon Nowab were sat side-by-side – it looked like El Blondie was the only one not to get a blonde neighbour right at the start. But that was probably OK, he has those big headphones for the surround-sound ipod experience.
At the first break Ram Vaswani, ever interesting to watch, had doubled his stack, and so had B4Matt,
while Dave Colclough, Pete Haslam and John Gale were climbing while Stuart Fox soon found himself with less than 2,000 after “bluffing a lot.” Soon thereafter it was actually Rob Yong who was eliminated with the AdAh, after he couldn’t get rid of a preflop K10 which hit two pair on an all-diamond flop. He had the Ace of diamonds, and a good long cathartic post about why he bet what he did when that hand turned out to be the end of his tournament. In the other salle, Dave Colclough doubled up to 40k with the AA, though, proving that they do win occasionally. He looked a tad surprised about that, it must be said.
It was around this time that ‘MunichAces’ on blonde decided to wish German circuiters Jan Heitmann and George Danzer, with whom Snoopy, Dana and I had such a fun time in Ireland, good luck. They were actually sightseeing and heading back on Day Two, but both of them made it through, despite a self-confessedly shaky start for George: “On a good day, I can tell what they have or what they’re going to do. It’s not a good day.” We all went out for delicious steak (mmm, steak) in a place off the Champs d’Elysees where even the decoration was cattle-oriented and wine came in a giant glass carafe. Great stuff. I linger over the dinner break detail because we got 1hr45 every day to enjoy our food the way Parisians do. How civilised.
There went from the field quite a few during the succeeding hours, including Julian Gardner, whom I talked to for the first time, finding out that he’s not as scary as he looks on TV. Jolly nice, in fact, and looked fairly Stoical about going out with Ad5d on an Ace-high, two diamonds flop against a bigger-kickered Ace. Meanwhile, El Blondie dropped to 26k after passing his QQ (correctly) when Matey flopped a set of Threes. The day ended with the prospect of fighting down to just 27 the following afternoon, followed by a reduction to 6 the next day, leaving the televised final its own special day at the end.
With the remaining players combined, the majority of stacks were still ‘comfortable’ as the blinds were only in their sixth level, but that didn’t stop George Danzer going out with the AA (yes, another one) against a player whose Deuces had caught a set on the flop. Ever self-critical, George assured me that he was capable of passing, if it weren’t for something his buddy Jan had said about that particular player’s aggression…Julian YoYo Thew, too, exited around this time, after a frustratingly card-dead experience which culminated in a button push with A7.
The curious started to request updates on the likes of Rory Matthews, who was still in decent shape after the first Day 2 break, and the ever-popular Matt Tyler, who had unfortunately just exited. He went with Julian to “drown their sorrows,” and when they came back they were both in a better mood. I’d like also to mention the very pleasant qualifiers, whom tikay and I got talking to mixed up amongst the big name players – one was young American Edward Rhee who’d qualified on UpperClassPoker and spent the first day looking for some kind of nonexistent rep to meet and greet. But the second day he held his own, forgetting about all that, and made it through about 
three quarters of Day 2. Along with him, pictured left (with the chandelier accidentally posed on his head) is Bob Cherrett, who despite describing himself as a “novice who only played small stakes,” performed equally well in this challenging tournament.
And then there’s Phil Hellmuth. I spent an entertaining few minutes (or could it have been longer?) listening to him get badgered by the likes of precocious young Roman Yitzhaki (who would have won my Climber of the Day award if he hadn’t gone and busted), and only occasionally looking like he was rising to the bait. In fact his composure was greater than I’d have imagined, and, credit where it’s due, he was the first player over 100k. But Day Two belonged to the Johansson/Johansens, Christer and Karsten respectively, who emerged from the pack of 80-something players looking like real final contenders, finishing top and fourth in chips. El Blondie exited around halfway through the day, and so did Jim Kerrigan (despite the encouraging, but rather vague advice from his online supporters to “double up!”) and a level later went Ramzi and then Joe Beevers, who lost the biggest pot of the tournament so far with his Jd Jh on an all-diamond, Seven-high board to Kd Kh.
When the bubble approached, Jani Sointula had vastly increased his stack, and added 29th place finisher Vanessa Rousso’s chips to it with his AK vs. her JJ. A striking and unusually vocal player, I’m sure it’s not the last we’ve seen from her. Jani (also striking, and totally silent) proved once again how the first day needn’t see you with All the Chips, if you can play the second (and third, and fourth) day in such a selectively aggressive manner. The bubble proper was Gabriel Burlet, whose KK were outdrawn by AK with a four-flush (ouch) and play paused for the night.
Back for the last 27, and it appeared that the British contingent remained a very short stacked Surinder, and Nabil Ayoubi, who’d qualified online for the second year running, and had already surpassed his finish, and guaranteed himself at least €11,000. With Surinder gone in 25th, Nabil actually finished 14th, and that was the last British runner.
Here seems like a good point to remind you of the payout for this event:
1) €712,500
2) €356,250
3) €243,250
4) €168,750
5) €131,250
6) €93,750
7) €75,000
8) €56,250
9) €37,500
10-12) €25,000
13-15) €21,000
16-18) €18,000
19-21) €15,000
22-24) €13,000
25-27) €11,000
It was around now that Christian Grundtvig started a rise to the top which would end on the final, eliminating a rather unlucky James Davenport, while the tables finally turned for Phil Hellmuth, as Zuo Ping Angelo Yu’s Ad6d beat Hellmuth’s Ah 10d with a diamond flush. Phil had had a tricky and unproductive day all round, finding himself re-raised or committed to call all-ins several times, and coming out on the wrong side of all those hands, including his final one. But Mr. Yu finished 15th – so where were all the chips going? Early in the day I would have said towards Philip Yeh, and Patrick Schuhl, but as time wore on Thomas Wahlroos built a chip lead, at one point to 660k when the nearest stack to him was 440k (Jani Sointula). Meanwhile, Romain Feriolo, Patrice Boudet and Henri Boutboul were keeping the French spectators happy, until Jani took out Feriolo and then Boudet! And with Christian Grundtvig cracking Kenneth Strandli’s AA with KK to give him the lead, the final was taking shape, as Henri Boutboul bubbled, into:
Thomas Wahlroos -- 653,000
Henrik Witt -- 649,000
Jani Sointula -- 647,000
Christian Grundtvig -- 625,000
Philip Yeh -- 456,000
Patirk Schuhl -- 455,000
The final table, like last year, took place behind closed doors on a specially constructed set, with one row of spectator seating around the table, meaning that the majority of viewers were in the kind of smoking lounge watching it on a live TV feed. Even Rolf was out there. Not the most dignified office, but at least Snoopy arrived early enough to grab a comfortable leather sofa. We were surprised at how quickly we lost place Six – Patrick Schuhl, whose AQ found itself dominated by Philip Yeh’s AK. He was pointed out to us as a good player on the forum, and there was also a lot of support for Thomas Wahlroos, who despite looking a bit like a Scandie hitman was very pleasant and seems to have made friends with everyone from Ramzi to Brian Wilson. He, after taking a pot off Philip a short while later, looked to have made the chips less evenly matched than they began, and he finished him off with AK racing 99 for a huge pot. Philip looked gutted, but €131,250 must have made him feel better, later.
With Thomas Wahlroos comfortably over the 1,000,000 mark, the short stack four-handed was the Danish Christian Grundtvig. He had some very vocal support in the audience (being filmed while they worked themselves into a frenzy), and when fellow Dane Henrik Witt finished 4th (AQ against Christian’s AK) they weren’t sure whether to commiserate or celebrate. So they yelled a lot.
Thomas Wahlroos eventually finished third, after a great few days’ play, with the blinds at 25k/50k and rising. He took nearly a quarter of a million Euro after running into Christian’s monster QQ when he pushed in with a raggy Ace. Impossible to just sit there three-handed, it was just as much so heads up, as Jani Sointula and Christian Grundtvig took turns pushing one another off preflop until Jani doubled through with A4 against Q10. But it was Christian, who, according to our Danish Source, blondeite ‘Powerdane’ is known as “the stamp,” as he used to sell stamps (one just has to believe sometimes) who forced the lead his way again, as he made Jani pass a few button raises his way with big re-raises.
Then Jani found his all-in with A5 called by Christian’s 66, and it was all over – second place for Finland (when asked how he felt, Jani said only “disappointed”) and an ecstatic set of Grundtvig supporters waiting for the new Champion. About half an hour later, when all the TV stuff (Takes One through Ten etc.) was done, and the tired contestants emerged to retrieve their enormous prizes and be congratulated by the (somewhat thinning) crowd. Then, as if nothing had happened, the French, ever cool, went about their business and headed for the cash games, the seating was dismantled and you’d never have known the WPT had just recently taken over the beautiful Aviation Club de France.