The third stop on the World Poker Tour’s fifth season was the Aviation Club de France in the beautiful city of Paris. This began on 12th June 2006, with action concluding four days later in an exciting final table. 232 players battled it out for the top prize; just under one million euros. The buy-in was 10,000€. The Grand Prix de Paris, as one of the most highly-anticipated events on the World Poker Tour has attracted some of the biggest names in European poker. Only six players were at the final table to vie for the top prize and the WPT event title.
Play was aggressive from the outset, and chips were traded relentlessly. The first player out from the final table was local man Patrick Schuhl of France. The French crowd were disappointed, but Schuhl couldn’t have been too disheartened, having won a seat in this tournament via satellite and eventually taking home almost 120,000€.
The next three players to exit the event to leave it heads up were:
- Sweden’s Phillip Yeh in 5th place who took home 166,668€
- Henrik Witt in 4th place for 214,313€
- Thomas Wahlroos in 3rd for 309,653€
Heads up play began with Denmark’s Christian Grundtvig dominating Jani Sointula 2:1 in chips. Several hands in and Grundtvig had only increased his huge chiplead playing very aggressively and utilizing his big stack effectively. Sointula started to take the reins after a while and started to close the gap on the chipleader.
The final hand came some time after it got down to two players. Sointula looked down to see A-5o and pushed all-in, and Grundtvig, who correctly thought he was ahead called with pocket 6’s. The board came 8-J-8-K-T and Grundtvig’s 6’s held up to give him the title and 930,375€. He was overwhelmed with congratulations from his fellow Danes and received the $25,000 entry to the WPT Championship. Jani Siontula found consolation in taking home almost 500,000€ back to Finland after an impressive display of poker over the four days.
Of the 232 entrants to the competition, it can be argued that no one deserved the title more than Christian Grundtvig. He played with maximum aggression from the first hand and used this to take a nice stack onto the final table. From there he did not let up, and his continued assault won him the title of WPT Grand Prix de Paris Champion.
--Steven Eddleston
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