World Poker Tour Grand Prix de Paris Day 3: Gruissem Maintains Lead
The World Poker Tour Season XI continued on Thursday with Day 3 of the Grand Prix de Paris at the Aviation Club de France. The day began with 63 players, but only 24 survived, including the chip leader Philipp Gruissem. Gruissem was the only player to cross the seven-figure mark, finishing the day with 1.06 million chips, but Matt Salsberg is right behind him with 951,000.
After a slow start to the day, Gruissem saw his stack rocket back up to the top of the leaderboard when he eliminated Ekrem Sanioglu. Gruissem and Sanioglu saw a flop of 10♠9♦8♥, and Gruissem checked to Sanioglu who fired 28,000. Gruissem check-raised to around 100,000, and Sanioglu quickly moved all in.
Sanioglu needled Gruissem, telling him he had “plenty of chips,” and Gruissem responded with an apology.
“I am sorry if I suck out on you,” he told Sanioglu as he called.
Sanioglu was well ahead with 9♣9♥ for a set of nines, but Gruissem was drawing live with J♥J♦. The 3♦ on the turn was a brick, but the 7♥ spiked on the river, giving Gruissem a winning straight.
Rather than win one big hand, Salsberg was a one-man wrecking crew, eliminating Marko Neumann, Tony G, David Benyamine, Patrick Sacrispeyre, and Antonio Subtil during Day 3. And according to Salsberg, he flopped five sets of deuces on Days 2 and 3 combined.
Here's a look at the top ten counts:
| Rank | Name | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Philipp Gruissem | 1,060,000 |
| 2 | Matt Salsberg | 951,000 |
| 3 | Idris Ambraisse | 591,000 |
| 4 | Bruno Lopes | 440,000 |
| 5 | Joe Serock | 411,000 |
| 6 | Jérome Douieb | 402,000 |
| 7 | Mohsin Charania | 307,000 |
| 8 | Grégoire Boissenot | 299,000 |
| 9 | Fabian Quoss | 279,000 |
| 10 | Florian Leconte | 266,000 |
The money bubble burst during the second-to-last level of the day. Antony Lellouche was the bubble boy, and he was eliminated in sick fashion. Fabian Quoss opened to 8,000 from the cutoff, Bryan Colin three-bet to 23,500 from the small blind, and Lellouche cold four-bet to 49,000 from the big blind. Quoss quickly folded, and Colin announced all in.
Lellouche snapped it off, but wasn't very happy to see Colin's hand.
| Colin | A♦A♠ |
| Lellouche | K♣K♦ |
The board ran out 2♥7♠J♣3♠6♣, and Lellouche was eliminated.
Shortly after the bubble burst, Jason Mercier lost a race for his tournament life against Florian Leconte. Mercier's A♣K♣ couldn't catch up to Leconte's J♣J♥ as the board ran out 5♠6♠10♥4♦9♥, and he was eliminated in 27th place.
WPT Champions Club member Sean Jazayeri and Giacomo Fundaro were only other players to be eliminated after the bubble burst, finishing in 26th and 25th respectively.
Theo Jorgensen and Juha Helppi are the only WPT Champions Club members remaining, and Jorgensen won this event in Season IX, earning him €638,377.
The Grand Prix de Paris will continue on Friday at 1500 CEST (0600 PDT). Be sure to follow the PokerNews Live Reporting Team as they provide up-to-the-minute updates straight from the Aviation Club de France.
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