Theo Jorgensen wins World Poker Tour’s Grand Prix de Paris
5/16/10 – 36-year-old Theo Jorgensen of Copenhagen in Denmark in the World Poker Tour’s latest ace, emerging best of 247 entrants in this week’s Grand Prix de Paris $10 000 buy-in Main Event at the prestigious Aviation Club de France.
Along with the respect for the win, a WPT bracelet and the trophy, the Danish pro collected a healthy, bank account boosting Euro 633 902, the lion’s share of the Euro 2 347 797 prize pool, and a seat at the Party Poker WPT World Championship worth $25 000.
Amongst those who made the money but not the final table were French actor and poker ace Patrick Bruel, Antony Lellouche and Russia’s Alexander Kravchenko. Bruel had a large supporting contingent on the rail and they were visibly deflated when he departed.
Those who have hit the rail in this WPT 2010-2011 season kick-off event before the money included WPT Champions Bertrand ‘Elky’ Grospellier, Guillaume Darcourt, Tommy Vedes, Freddy Deeb, Thomas Bichon, and Surinder Sunar (who took down this event in 2004), as well as other top names such as, John Juanda, Men ‘The Master’ Nguyen, Aussie Millions champion Tyron Krost, Sorel Mizzi, Isabelle Mercier, Ludovic Lacay, Roger Hairabredian, David Steicke, Casey Kastle, Roberto Romanello, Andrew Feldman and Remy Biechel. Coverage of the event is produced by Matchroom Sport.
At the start of the last day, Jorgensen held a chip lead of over 1.5 million over his closest rival Fabrice Touil (1 183 000) and he used the advantage to good effect throughout final table play.
Other players around the final table were Nourredine Aïtaleb (810 000); Arnaud Mattern (678 000); Per Linde (584 000); Michael Guenni (538 000); Antoine Amourette (489 000) and Jimmy Ostensson (436 000).
Amourette’s performance was especially noteworthy in the action that followed as one after another of the players who had started with chip stacks far larger than his were eliminated and headed for the exit.
When Per Linde went out in third place, Amourette faced Jorgensen in the heads up, but the Dane’s 10 to 1 chip lead gave him little chance and Amourette was soon headed for the rail.
Jorgensen’s latest win adds new lustre to a career that has seen him make two European Poker Tour finals and 17 major tourney cashes (five of them at World Series events), bringing his career earnings prior to Paris to around $1.5 million.
The growing interest of the soon-to-be-liberalised French gambling market was much in evidence on the evening prior to the main event, when the final table contestants were hosted by the PMU et le Cheval Français and ACF to an evening’s hospitality and gambling on the trotting at the Vincennes horse racing track.
There was even a major race named in honour of the poker tourney – the ‘Finale du WPT Grand Prix de Paris’ – which took place early in the evening and was followed later by a riotous novelty race featuring final tablers in a televised horse and cart race, that was won by Antoine Amourette, who went on to finish the WPT poker main event as the runner up.
