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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.