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Days after the World Poker Tour wrapped up its stop in Venice, Italy, the tour headed to Paris, France for the WPT National Series at the Aviation Club de France, sponsored by PartyPoker. After a long tournament and slow final table, a female champion was crowned in Paris.

Action started for the €5K buy-in NLHE Main Event on February 9 with Day 1A and 91 players, followed by Day 1B with 97 players, bringing the total for the tournament to 188. The prize pool was set at €870,852 to pay out the top 18 players. Day 2 brought the remaining 88 competitors together, though only 31 made it through the day. On Day 3, the field dwindled, and with the elimination of Jakob Carlsson in 19th place, play continued until 10 were left. Day 4 found the final table quickly, as Jean-Francois Tyczynski left in tenth and Nichlas Mattson followed in ninth.

The final table got underway on February 15, and after a very slow start, Nicolo Calia was the first to be eliminated, courtesy of Benjamin Pollak. Jean-Louis Tepper then went to work to send Ingo Paulus home in seventh and Sam Trickett away in sixth. Alexandre Brivot took the reins and sent Tobias Wagner out in fifth, and Tepper stepped back in to eliminate Pollak in fourth. Finally, after Natalia Nikitina doubled through Tepper, a family pot eliminated Tepper in third place.

Heads-up started with 2.18 million for Nikitina and 1.892 million for Brivot, and the two exchanged the lead back and forth. When Brivot doubled through Nikitina and the latter was left with 850K, it looked like Brivot had the title, but Nikitina doubled twice and climbed, all the way back into the lead. Finally, Brivot pushed all-in with Ks-Jh and Nikitina called with Ac-3s, and the board of 6d-4h-8s-Qh-Qs gave Brivot second place and Nikitina became the WPT champion, which made her £243,830 richer.

Final table payouts:

1st place: Natalia Nikitina €243,830
2nd place: Alexandre Brivot €174,170
3rd place: Jean-Louis Tepper €113,210
4th place: Benjamin Pollak €69,670
5th place: Tobias Wagner €52,250
6th place: Sam Trickett €43,545
7th place: Ingo Paulus €34,835
8th place: Nicolo Calia €26,120

The next official stop on the WPT calendar is the WPT Invitational and the L.A. Poker Classic, both scheduled for February at Commerce Casino in Los Angeles.