Young online poker gun takes the Grand Prix de Paris

The 18 year old Canadian online poker star Will Ma (better known as cuteipi314 in the virtual arena) emerged as the champ in the final table of the Grand Prix de Paris at the Aviation Club de France in Paris this weekend.

Unfortunately, French officialdom's clampdown on the originally World Poker Tour event means that Ma's truimph over some heavyweight poker pros will not be seen on television, but that did little to dampen the enthusiasm and excitement that the tournament generated. At one stage Ma lagged behind his heads up opponent by 2 to 1 on chip count.

Six figure paychecks - and in Euros - went to the last four players standing with Ma collecting the winner's check of Euro 422 560 and runner up Runar Runarsson the second prize of Euro 224 480. Other players who profited well from the event were third placed David Redlin (Euro 158 460) and fourth Ram Vaswani (Euro 105 640)

The 18 year, who hails from Waterloo, Ontario had played through a starting field of 132 top poker challengers that included the likes of David Banyamine, Roland de Wolfe, Freddie Deeb, Jeff Lisandro and Surindar Sunar, each paying a $10 000 buy-in for the right to go after the big prize.

This was Ma's first-ever live tournament, a testament to the extraordinary potential of this young player, who will surely be seen increasingly in the big world poker events.