The WPT Grand Prix de Paris Main Event is down to the final 61 players and with 36 of them being paid it is almost time for the bubble to burst. If the previous days play are anything to go by the bubble will burst early on in the day meaning every with chips in front of them will walk away with no less than €11,100.
A total of 167 players took their seats yesterday and in less than six hours of poker 106 of them had busted out! The play has been very loose and aggressive leading to some wild swings in stack sizes. One man who has benefited from the loose action is Franck Pepe who will start Day 3 as the overall chip leader on 432,000 chips. Pepe’s best result of his live career came last November when he came second in the WPT Amneville Main Event, losing out to the eccentric Sam El Sayed heads-up. Can he go one better in Paris? Only time will tell.
Hot on the heels of Pepe are Christophe Lesage (401,000) and Dori Yacoub (370,100) but it is the man currently in sixth place who is arguably the most dangerous of the surviving players. McLean Karr is an American pro who has been one of the most consistent performers in major tournaments over the past couple of years and is the better half of the delectable Tatjana Pasalic. Karr has results dating back to 2008 but his real breakthrough came in 2010 when he won the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars Main Event for a cool $878,500. Yesterday we bumped into British pro Jack Ellwood and when we mentioned Karr was amongst the leader he simply said, “That is not good for anyone.”
Other notable players still in with a chance of the €500,000 (plus a $25,500 seat to the WPT World Championship) first place prize are Guillaume Darcourt, Farzad Bonyadi, Jani Sointula Govert Metaal and Martin Jacobson. Play resumes at 1400 local time and the plan is to play down to just 27 players. The WPT Grand Prix de Paris has just got serious!
