Marvin Rettenmaier Wins Pokerstars inaugural French Poker Series

Posted 2/16/11 : Almost a million in the prize pool
 
The Pokerstars inaugural French Poker Series live tournament has concluded with a victory for German player Marvin Rettenmaier in Paris, giving him a take-home of Euro 244,036.
 
567 players ponied up Euro 2 000 apiece to compete, creating a prize-pool worth Euro 979 776 for the Grand Final, which was held at the Cercle Haussmann near the Opéra de Paris.
 
Among them were household names in online and live poker tournament circles like Arnaud Mattern, Thomas Bichon, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Julian Brécard, Jose "Nacho" Barbero, EPT London champ David Vamplew and 2009 EPT San Remo winner Constant Rijkenberg all helped create a €979.776 prize pool.
 
The win brought Rettenmaier's career winnings to almost $700 000 and adds another banner to a growing list of big-game wins that includes a WSOP final table and a win on the Spanish Poker Tour.
 
Runner-up Basil Yaïche collected a paycheck for Euro 153 000 for providing some stern opposition in the heads up. Other final table players included  Julien Jolivet, Michael Bouaziz, Jerome Hoen, Alexandre Bonnin, Leonard Truche and Stephane Benadiba.