Tuesday, November 8, 2011 : FRENCH ACE TAKES WORLD POKER TOUR AMNEVILLE
Allain enjoys a Euro 310,633 pay day
French poker ace Adrien Allain has scooped the first prize of Euro 310,633 at the Euro 3,200 + Euro 300 World Poker Tour Amnéville tournament sponsored by the French-licensed WPT poker website. Allain's prize also carries a $25 000 seat in the WPT World Championship at the Bellagio in 2012.
Allain, who is a former APT Macau champ, was playing in his first WPT tourney, and said: "I built a great stack and felt I missed a really good chance of making the final table. I returned this year with more motivation than ever, and my dream turned into reality!”
Runner-up Jordane Ouin, a 29-year-old tennis coach from Lyon, took home Euro 170,365 and a seat to the WPT Grand Prix de Paris 2012 after qualifying online for just Euro 33. After opening an account on PartyPoker.fr, he won a package to Amneville in his first tournament on the site.
“Winning this amount of money from just Euro 33 allows me to dedicate time to improving my game. My next event will probably be WPT Marrakech”, said Jordane.
Amneville attracted a field of 379 players, who gathered at the Seven Casino Amnéville and generated a total prize pool of Euro 1,164,288.
Among those who took part was French online ace Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Joseph Cheong, Marvin Rettenmaier, Liv Boeree, Bruno Fitoussi, Guillaume Darcourt, Roger Hairabedian, John Eames, Kevin McPhee and Thibaud Guenegou, who finished third.
The final table comprised Allain and Jordane, along with Thibaud Gunegou, Scott Baumstein ( USA), Michel Konieczny and Arnaud Trouer ( both of France )