Partouche Poker Tour: Star-studded lineup in Cannes

The Main Event of the Partouche Poker Tour kicked off at the Palm Beach Casino, Cannes on Thursday. After Day 1A, 159 players have made the cut for Day 2 and Vanessa Selbst is one of the chip leaders.

Frenchman Pierre Larue is the current chip leader with 251,600 chips while Vanessa Selbst is second with 203,800 chips. They are the only two players, out of the 159 remaining, who finished with over 200,000 chips.

The big name players who turned up on the first day of play did not have a great day at the tables. Erik Seidel, Ludovic Lacay and David Williams have all busted while Gus Hansen is barely hanging on with just 10,700 chips.

Team PokerStrategy.com on Day 1B

Four Team PokerStrategy.com members  BongBob (pictured right), Nazgul, CuCbKu and Thorsten77 will be starting on the second opening day and several other PokerStrategists will also be taking part. In the meantime, they are all enjoying their time at Cannes. "It is pretty nice here in Cannes", reported Nazgul.

Several other big name players will also be joining our team members on Day 1B. They include Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari and Chino Rheem.

Here are some of the notable chip counts after Day 1A:

Partouche Poker Tour Main Event Day 1A
Rank	Name	Chips
1	Pierre Larue	251,600
2	Vanessa Selbst	203,800
3	Fabrice Gouget	198,950
4	Jacob Reffeldt Rosmussem	188,400
5	Kenn Secher	164,500
6	Jean Michel Herve Ploch	160,000
7	Mickael Chevallier	153,900
8	Gilbert Touati	141,700
9	Daniel Lo Spagnuolo	130,600
10	Francois Balmigere	125,800
-	Antoine Saout	98,300
-	Theo Jorgensen	77,700
-	Gus Hansen	10,700

Here are several videos and pictures from the event, courtesy of the Partouche Poker Tour blog:

Day 1A Highlights

Interview with Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi

The hall where all the poker is being played

Gus Hansen gets in position to grind it out