The World Poker Tour Ponied up and Partied up in France

The World Poker Tour held the WPT Grand Prix de Paris at the Aviation Club this week. So far, there were 4 fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat, days of poker action - day 4 (Friday) - was a nine hour round that whittled down the original entry field of 228 participants to the following 6 survivors: Matt Salsberg 1,757,000 Mohsin Charania 1,435,000 Timothy Adams 1,198,000 Theo Jorgensen 1,169,000 Philipp Gruissem 776,000 Fabian Quoss 570,000 The chip leader at the end of day 4, Matt Salsberg, is the executive producer of Showtime's acclaimed cable television series 'Weeds', which is currently in its eighth season. The prize pool is confirmed at Euro 1,624,500, which will be distributed to the last 27 players with final table pay-outs as follows: Winner: Euro 400,000 Second Place: Euro 264,000 Third Place: Euro 170,065 Fourth Place: Euro 125,775 Fifth Place: Euro 95,615 Sixth Place: Euro 75,765 In addition to the hefty winner's prize pot, the winner will also receive a seat in the $25,000 WPT World Championship in May. Although obviously people had gathered to play poker, there were a variety of celebrations worth mentioning: There was a Thursday lunchtime cruise that launched onto the River Seine in the region of the Eiffel Tower, and then glided past many of the Parisian historical and modern landmarks such as Notre Dame Cathedral, the Musee d'Orsay, the Louvre, and the Conciergerie. Friday evening the leading players were assembled and honored at one of the world's best restaurants - L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon - for an extravagant, 7-course, bon vivant, dinner that included a champagne toast, 2 desserts, and 4 wine magnums. In addition to the leading table champs, the guest list included Marvin Rettenmaier, Chino Reem, Michael Mizrachi, Scott Siever, Joe Serock, Will Failla, and Yevgeniy Timoshenko. Mr Rettenmaier was also celebrating his birthday. After the epicurean dinner, everyone was hustled over to the Queen to meet up with other Grand Prix de Paris participants for the WPT Players Party. Queen is one of Paris' royal nightclubs, renowned as a place to see and be seen, a place which has featured globally famous DJ's such as Martin Solveig, Bob Sinclair, David Guetta, and Avicci. In addition to the poker players' celebration, Queen was hosting a competition for France's best DJ the same night.