The Partouche Poker Tour took a two month break before the final table kicked off, and it worked out very similar to how the World Series of Poker Main Event did. While this event didn’t draw in nearly as many entrants as the WSOP Main Event did, its 579 total entrants still created a first place prize of €1,000,000. The event was played at the Palm Beach Casino in Cannes, France, and featured a buy in of €8,500.
The final table started with a well-known name in Sam Trickett holding the chip lead, and not much changed when all was said and done. Trickett did have a bit of work to do when he got to heads up play against Salman Behbehani, but he was able to overcome a two to one chip deficit and won the grand prize in the end. It wasn’t all bad for Behbehani though, who got a nice second place pay day of €600,000 for his excellent run. As a matter of fact, each player who made it to the final table received a payday of over six figures.
While this was a very nice score for Trickett, it’s just one of many for a player who has been one of the hottest in the game this year. He started off the action with a $1,525,000 score at the Aussie Millions, which featured a $100k buy-in. He also had a second place finish soon after that in the $250k Super High Roller event, which paid him another million dollar score, of $1,400,000. Trickett then went on to bring home a few other five figure cashes, including an 11th place finish at the EPL’s first event. No one can put up an argument that Trickett is one of the hottest players in the game right now.
His strong run also pushed him into the top ten in the ESPN top ten poker rankings, which are called “The Nuts”. He has won over $4.2 million just this year, which places him fifth for the year behind the final three players from the 2011 WSOP Main Event, and Erik Seidel, who was actually the player that beat him at the Aussie Millions Super High Roller Event.