Day 1A
With a chance to grab the biggest piece of a $2,759,451 prize pool, 232 players came from all over the world to enter. Names such as Phil Hellmuth Jr., Marcel Luske, Rob Hollink, David "Devilfish" Ulliott, Vanessa Rousso, Joe Beevers, Juha Helppi, Isabelle Mercier, Pascal Perrault, Michiel Brummelhuis , Henrik Olander, Victor Ramdin, Kirill Gerasimov and Amir Vahedi were seen at the tables. The total number of entrants were split into two groups with 117 playing on the 12th, the remaining 115 on the 13th.

61 were left at the end of the round. Still alive were Phil Hellmuth Jr., Victor Ramdin, Vanessa Rousso, Rob Hollink, Michel Brummelhuis and Jan Sorensen. Here are the chip leaders with counts for Day 1A:

1. Kalil Rahal -- 85,125
2. Gerard Poujade -- 74,425
3. Karsten Johansen -- 72,200
4. Michel Brummelhuis -- 62,175
5. Sami Torbey -- 60,650
6. Shawn Buchanan -- 52,850

Day 1B
Roland De Wolfe last year's WPT champion will play today. He was joined by Farzad Bonyadi, Willie Tann, Paul Magriel, Jan Boubli, Andreas Hagen, Alan Goehring, Alan Smurfit, Casey Kastle, Erica Schoenberg, Carlos Mortensen, Surinder Sunar, Freddy Deeb, Ram Vaswani and John Gale who helped round out the 115 that will play on Day 1B.

Once things got started the pace was actually slow due to the World Cup match between France and Switzerland going on at the same time as the tournament. But still the casualties came. Paul Magriel, David Benyamine, Carlos Mortensen and Rob Young were among those sent to the sidelines to watch on. 74 players were left at the end of Day 1B and as in the World Cup matches, some had to go home and some stayed to move on to another round. The names of the top 6 leaders at the end of Day 1B were:

1. Eric Koskas -- 66,075 chips
2. Henrik Witt -- 53,000 chips
3. Ram Vaswani -- 58,900 chips
4. Curt Kohlberg -- 44,900 chips
5. Farzad Bonyadi -- 41,050 chips
6. Andreas Hagen -- 46,300 chips
7. Gilles Haddad -- 39,725 chips

Day 2
Today 135 came together from Days 1A and 1B. The table action was pretty chaotic as only one of the names from either day made the top 6 when the dust settled. Players who ended up leaving were Rob Hollink, Thomas Middleton the winner of the Master Classics Main Event, Farzad Bonyadi, Freddy Deeb, defending champion from last year Roland De Wolfe, Steven Frederick, Victor Ramdin and Alan Goehring.

But one persons pain is another persons pleasure in the poker world. Phil Hellmuth Jr. started the day with 46,475 chips and just rocketed to over 200,000 so he was happy to say the least. Karsten Johansen began with 72,200, but ended up with over 300,000. At the end of the day, (3:45 a.m. the next day actually), 27 players remained. Here are the top players with chip counts:

1. Karsten Johansen -- 338,000 chips
2. Thomas Walroos -- 268,400 chips
3. Romain Feriolo -- 234,300 chips
4. Christer Johansson -- 214,400 chips
5. Phil Hellmuth Jr. -- 208,000 chips
6. Jani Sointula -- 183,200 chips

Day 3
Play to determine who sits at the final table began at 4:00 p.m. Some were lucky, others not so. For example on one hand Christian Grundtvig (6h 3h) was in a hand with James Davenport (Ks Qs). Flop produced 6s 7s 9s handing Davenport a flush which made the call to Christian's bet very easy to do. When the turn card was a 6 Davenport went all-in and Christian called. River card was a 9 giving Christian a full house and James Davenport the boot. David Pandestre also lost to Christian when his Ad Kd all in move was crushed when Christian produced pocket A's and the remaining cards did not help either player. Then Kenneth Strandli (A A) was in a 700,000 chip pot with Christian (K K) when another K came on the river. (Wow!) Poor Phil Hellmuth Jr. was on the downside of the bell curve as he lost hand after hand, eventually busting out in 16th place. By 11:45 p.m. we had the 6 finalists for tomorrow and they are:

1. Thomas Wahlroos -- 653,000 chips
2. Henrik Witt -- 649,000 chips
3. Jani Sointula -- 647,000 chips
4. Christian Grundtvig -- 625,000 chips
5. Philip Yeh -- 456,000 chips
6. Pat Schuhl -- 455,000 chips

WPT Event Final Table
Christian Grundtvig from Denmark won the WPT championship event at Avation Club de France on Friday. Besides the 712,500 EUROS he received, Christian was also rewarded with a $25,000 freeroll seat to the WPT championships that will be held at the Bellagio in April next year. Here are the final table results.

1. Christian Grundtvig -- 712,500 EUROS
2. Jani Sointula -- 356,250 EUROS
3. Thomas Wahlroos -- 243,750 EUROS
4. Henrik Witt -- 168,750 EUROS
5. Philip Yeh -- 131,250 EUROS
6. Pat Schuhl -- 93,750 EUROS

1. Christian Grundtvig -- $917,077
2. Jani Sointula -- $446,038
3. Thomas Wahlroos -- $305,184
4. Henrik Witt -- $211,281
5. Philip Yeh -- $164,330
6. Pat Schuhl -- $117,379