Two big poker battles this weekend

There's a tough weekend for poker tournament fans and players ahead as the erstwhile World Poker Tour's Grand Prix de Paris and Betfair's Masters of Europe events unfold in Paris and London respectively.

After fierce competition since May 6, the final table has been decided for the Euro 10 000 buy-in Grand Prix de Paris, where nine survivors will bet and bluff their way to a winner's prize of Euro 422 560 this weekend. This year's big French event has been marred by the interference of French authorities and uncertain legal climate which caused WPT to remove the epic from its schedule, and it will not be televised (see earlier InfoPowa report)

Despite the disruption, the event has still attracted plenty of action and spectator attention, and has been keenly fought at the Aviation Club de France.

Will Ma has the chip lead on 610 000, well ahead of Jeffrey Lisandro (490 000) and Ram Vaswani (413 000). Low man on the chip counts is Jeff Wallace on 103 000.

Over in the UK, a fine assembly of top poker names and champs from the World Series of Poker, the Aussie Millions, the World Poker Tour, the European Poker Tour and the Asian Poker Tour will be battling it out in an exclusive, 36 player tournament that will be televised before a live audience this weekend.

The Betfair.com Masters of Europe promises poker star action as the big names fight it out for a $300 000 top prize. UK viewers will see the televised replay later this year.