Final Nine Line up for Partouche Poker Tour Climax

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) may finally be over, but that does not mean there isn’t more than a few events to get excited by this weekend.

Germany’s Pius Heinz lifted the WSOP’s main event gold bracelet – as well as a rather handy $8,715,638 – in Las Vegas on Tuesday as the winner of the November Nine, but there’s still a €1million (approximately $1,364,000/£857,000) first prize up for grabs as the Partouche Poker Tour (PPT) main event reaches a climax in France this weekend.

An initial field of 579 entries for the €8,500 ($11,600/£7,282) buy-in event has been whittled down to just nine for the final table that starts tomorrow in the Palm Beach Casino, Cannes, with young English professional Sam Trickett leading the way on 2,065,000 chips.

Nottingham’s Trickett enjoyed a fabulous 2011 WSOP Europe with a fourth place finish in Event #3, the €5,300 ($7,232/£4,542) Pot-Limit Omaha tournament, for €77,642 ($105,937/£66,525) and will be hard to beat come tomorrow.

Similar to the WSOP main event, there has been a break in play from the original September tournament to allow for extensive television coverage, but Trickett will face some stiff competition from Frenchman Alexandre Coussy (2,473,000 chips), American Salman Behbehani (2,446,000), Dane Mads Wissing (2,144,000), Italian Mustapha Kanit (2,047,000), France’s Roger Hairabedian (1,890,000), Ukrainian Oleksii Kovalchuk (1,626,000), Israeli Ilan Boujenah (1,241,000) and another Ukrainian in Alexander Dovzhenko (944,000).

Some big-name pros, of course, failed to make the nine and included the likes of Juha Helppi, Ludovic Lacay, Giuseppe Pantaleo and Juan Maceiras.

Final table payouts at the Partouche Poker Tour (PPT) main event:

1. €1,000,000 (approximately $1,364,000/£857,000)

2. €600,000 ($818,755/£513,958)

3. €379,760 ($518,274/£325,296)

4. €300,000 ($409,422/£256,975)

5. €230,000 ($313,897/£196,995)

6. €190,000 ($259,306/£162,735)

7. €160,000 ($218,329/£137,040)

8. €130,000 ($177,393/£111,354)

9. €100,000 ($136,440/£85,657)