French connection: Hugues Girard triumphs at WPT Prime Paris

While the action at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Playground Championship in Montreal continues this week, the excitement has just wrapped up in another French-speaking corner of the world. 

On Monday, action concluded in the WPT Prime Paris Championship event at Club Circus Paris. The €1,100 buy-in event ran from October 23-28, drawing a field of 1,242 entries across the five starting flights offered to generate a prize pool of $1,285,559. 

When the final hand was dealt, France's Hugues 'Hugo' Girard had all the chips in play and laid claim to the $183,294 top prize, which includes a $10,400 seat in the 2024 WPT World Championship this December at Wynn Las Vegas. Along with the payday and the ticket, Girard collected the WPT Prime Paris trophy. 

Hometown hero

For most, the logistics of taking home a trophy of that size might require some consideration. As a Parisian himself, Girard only had to make a short trip before proudly displaying his hard-earned silverware. 

Hugues Girard defeated Mathieu Goncalves heads up to take home the WPT Prime Paris Championship title.

Girard defeated countryman and runner-up Mathieu Goncalves in the heads-up battle to finish off a near wire-to-wire performance that saw him start the final table with a commanding chip lead and only relinquish it momentarily during heads-up play. Goncalves doubled up several times throughout before briefly holding the chip lead in 

The win stands as the largest score in Girard's career and brings his live tournament earnings past the $700,000 mark, according to The Hendon Mob. 

The entirety of the final table streamed live on the PMU Poker Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook channels and remains available for those who missed out. 

2024 WPT Prime Paris Championship final table results

Place	Player	Prize (USD)
1	Hugues Girard	$183,294
2	Mathieu Goncalves	$126,279
3	Kostya Zaks	$91,863
4	Baptiste Audoli	$68,681
5	Etienne Silva de Oliveira	$52,508
6	Oleksii Ievchenko	$41,079
7	Ludovic Amblard	$32,777
8	Samuel Fournier	$26,416

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^{Images Courtesy of World Poker Tour}