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The first of two Day 1 starting flights in the World Poker Tour Grand Prix de Paris played out just a few days ago and Mikko Sundell is currently the player to beat with almost 204,000 chips, though Yann Dion is trailing by a tiny margin. A total of 140 professional poker players took to the Aviation Club de France to pay high roller buy-ins of 7,500 Euro each. If roughly the same number of players arrive on Day 1b, it will create a prize pool of over 2 million Euro.

The starting field of 140 was reduced to just 70 by the conclusion of Day 1a, and a number of notable pros have already faced elimination. Among them were Kara Scott, Arnaud Mattern, 2009 WSOP final table players Antoine Sauout and James Akenhead, and past WPT champions Sam El Sayed and Roberto Romanello.

A number of big name pros such as Ludovic Lacay, Marvin Rettenmaier, Jani Sointula and Mike Sexton remain in the competition, and were able to amass the kind of sizable chip stacks that will improve their chances of survival. Other pros such as Sorel Mizzi, John Eames, Juha Helppi and Joseph Cheong were able to hang on as well, albeit with much smaller chip stacks.

The current leaderboard as of the end of Day 1a is listed below:

10 – Alexandre Brivot – 103,800
9 – Marvin Rettenmaier – 104,600
8 – Pori Yacoub – 106,000
7 – Kent Lundmark – 107,700
6 – Jerome Brion – 107,900
5 – Jani Sointula – 135,400
4 – Frederic Magen – 156,300
3 – Jean-Noel Thorel – 186,000
2 – Yann Dion – 201,400
1 – Mikko Sundell – 203,800

Following the completion of Day 1b, Day 2 action will kick off on Wednesday.

The World Championship of Online Poker, sponsored by PokerStars, is now in full swing and a number of legendary pros from both the live and online poker scenes emerged to win five-figure and six-figure sums. Chief among them was Jonathan Karamalikis, who earned his first major WCOOP title after defeating an all-star final table including Martin Staszko of the 2011 November Nine.

Karamalikis’ win came in WCOOP Event 6, a $200 buy-in NLHE Turbo that included rebuys. A total of 1,589 players enrolled in the tournament, creating a $1.01 million prize pool that more than doubled the $500k guarantee. Other notable finishers in the event included medmar, who finished in second for $131k, and the aforementioned Staszko, who landed in fourth place for $73k.

The biggest cash win of the day, however, belonged to K_O_S_T_Y_A, the Russian player who ended up winning the two-day NLHE event known as WCOOP 3. A staggering 10,107 players paid buy-ins of $200 plus tournament fees to create a prize pool in excess of $2.02 million. K_O_S_T_Y_A survived a field that included O-Totoro, Yoggi744 and Brendan Reid to take home an incredible $289k. O-Totoro and Yoggi744 finished in second and third to win $212k and $150k, respectively.

The WCOOP diverged from the Hold’em format for Event 4, a PLO tournament with a $300 buy-in and just under 1,700 registrants. Despite entering the final table with on of the lower chip counts, bratpack1979 was able to speed past a number of notable Omaha grinders to score a flush and secure the $83.5k first-place prize.

Other six-figure scores came in finale of WCOOP 1, a 6-Max NLHE tournament with a $200 buy-in and a $1.5 million prize pool. The top three spots belonged to Miguel Use, Fisherman903 and Mrazeg, who struck a three-way deal to take home $211k, $171k and $112k, respectively.

Originally scheduled to take place in Late July, the hearing to discuss Full Tilt Poker’s AGCC license (which was suspended on June 29^th, 2011) has once again postponed, this time from September 15, 2011 to September 19, 2011.

At the original hearing on July 26^th, Full Tilt poker attorneys argued for the public hearing to be adjourned so the site could continue negotiations with investors. The complete details of what was transpiring took place behind closed doors even though the hearing was billed as “public”.

After listening to Full Tilt Poker’s side of the story, the AGCC decided to allow Full Tilt Poker the additional time requested, giving them until no later than September 15, 2011—whichcaused a minor uproar in the crowd that had gathered seeking information on the solvency of Full Tilt. However it appears that no later than September 15, 2011 can be taken to mean ‘or four days after that date’ as the AGCC issued the following statement on Monday:

The hearing will reconvene at 0900 on Monday 19th September, 2011. The hearing will be held in the Plaza Suite at the Riverbank Park Plaza Hotel, 18 Albert Embankment, London, SE1 7TJ.

As before, those wishing to attend are requested to contact the AGCC on +44 (0)1481 825500 or via info@agcc.gg

Even though the delay is a mere four days, after everything that has transpired this small delay is sure to still rankle a few feathers in the poker community.

The National Hockey League and the high stakes online poker community are combining for the NHL Faceoff, a first-annual charity event that will have some of the biggest names from the NHL teaming up with your favorite high stakes pros. The event, which is scheduled to kick off on September 10 at the Playground Poker Club in Kahnakwake, Quebec, will raise money for McGill University’s Jodi Taiger Lazarus Fund for Hereditary Breast Cancer Research.

According to David Montour, the Chief Operating Officer of the Playground Poker Club, the idea of such a charity event was an easy sell to both the involved poker players and the NHL players. He went on to say that Montreal’s status as a premier destination for both hockey and poker made it just as easy to determine the event’s location.

A total of 10 teams will play in the event, each with an NHLer as Captain and a poker pro as Assistant Captain. The captain pairings are as follows:

Mike Bossy – Erik Cajelais
Carey Price – Pascal Lefrancois
Bobby Dollas – Gavin Smith
Guy Lafleur – Will Molson
Peter Mahovlich – Jennifer Leigh
P.K. Subban – Antonio Esfandiari
Petr Svoboda – Marc Karam
Guy Carbonneau – Michael Mizrachi
Travis Moen – Trishelle Cannatella
Josh Gorges – Jeff Madsen

The NHL Faceoff will double as a team and individual event. Each team member will be required to pay a buy-in of $250, with add-ons and rebuys available for $125. The members of the winning team will then face off against one another in a $5,000 freeroll.

Although online qualifiers for the event have ended, it will be possible to buy into a spot on one of the teams directly. Organizers, however, have said that competition for the remaining available spots will be difficult, to say the least.

In a unique twist, the tournament will have a bounty feature. If you knock a Team Captain out of the tournament, he’ll give you his hockey jersey off his back and even sign it.

After beginning life with an impressive turnout for both the inaugural Pro/Am tournament as well as for the $20k buy-in Main Event, the Epic Poker league is faced with its first hurdle after a less than spectacular 97 players turned out for the second Pro/Am tournament. With the tour needing 132 entrants to reach the guaranteed $180k in prizes (nine EPL Main Event seats) the turnout this weekend will force the EPL to pony-up over $50k toward the prize-pool.

As far as the tournament goes, 20 players managed to make it through to Monday’s Day 2, and since unlike the first Pro/Am there is no additional prize-money the tournament will likely be called to a halt when nine players remain –since 1^st place and 9^th place receive the same prize; a seat in the $20k Main Event.

The 20 players remaining constitute some of the biggest names in poker, including one of the biggest names of all in Phil Hellmuth. Also playing for a discounted will be Rep Porter, Matt Marafioti, Brandon Meyers, Russell Rosenblum, Christian Harder, Jamie Kaplan, Orson Young, Jeremy Ausmus, Greg Mueller, Ryan Young, Tim West, Sean Getzwiller, Nam Le, Andreas Hoivold, Jeremiah DeGreef, JJ Liu, Brent Roberts and Michael Divita.

A major reason for the attendance decline has to be from the European poker schedule, which is in full swing during September. Because of the numerous tournaments taking place in Europe over the next month many of the European tournament pros are staying home, as well as a slew of American pros staying in Europe at the present time.