Yorky Pud

The Partouche Poker Tour Main Event has reached the money payouts after the 100 players who stated Day 3 were whittled down to just 47 survivors. Amongst those still in with a realistic chance of winning the tournament and the €1,000,000 on offer for doing just that, are British duo Ben Vinson and Sam Trickett.

The bubble burst at around 1900 local time after almost two hours of playing hand-for-hand! The unfortunate bubble boy was Jean-Jacques Mars, a colourful character who is always dressed impeccably in a suit and sporting a huge, unlit cigar. Mars found himself all in with a pair of kings but they were ultimately cracked by the ace-ten of his opponent. Although he did not receive any prize money, Mars was given a free entry to the 2012 edition of this tournament, whilst the remaining players were all guaranteed to walk away with at least €12,000.

By the time the dust settled on Day 3 there were 47 players who bagged up their chips, one of which was the aforementioned Vinson, who bagged and tagged 450,500 chips, enough to put him in 16th place at the start of Day 4. Vinson has almost $560,000 in live tournament winnings but has had to endure a rather barren spell during 2010-2011 where he has only netted $70,000 in total. Maybe this tournament will be the booster he needs to get back into the form he produced in 2007 and 2009.

In tenth place going into Day 4 with 535,500 chips is Sam Trickett, a man who has won more than $3,000,000 in 2011 alone. The former professional footballer has the chance to win his third seven-figure score of the year in what would be his 10th career victory in the live tournament arena. Since Trickett's win in the $100,000 buy-in event at the Aussie Millions and his runner-up finish in the $250,000 Super High Roller, again at the Aussie Millions, he has come close to other major results but has fallen just short, including a sixth place finish in a WPT Regional Series in Paris, a 16th place in a $1,500 WSO event and more recently an 11th place in the inaugural Epic Poker League Main Event. He will be hoping to go the distance in Cannes.

Day 4 will see the 47 survivors, from a field of 579, be reduced further still so that only 18 of them will still be in the tournament. At this point each player will have locked up no less than €30,000 and will be only 17 opponents away from a cool €1,000,000 prize!