Sam El Sayed Wins WPT Amneville 2025

Written By: Alan | January 12, 2025 / Posted In Poker News

Sam El Sayed wins! The poker community has been so focused on the recent 2025 World Series of Poker final table that many had forgotten about the World Poker Tour (WPT) making its first stop of the tournaments history in Amneville, France.

Although the focus was on the WSOP main event final table, there will have been a number of poker players looking forward to the WPT €3,200 event, especially if you consider that the tournament drew 542 hopefuls to its tables.

Sponsored by PartyPoker.fr (where all new players receive a 100% up to $500 bonus when they use PartyPoker bonus code PSR100 when depositing), the tournament was offered a huge amount of publicity through the online poker site and with such a healthy turn out, the total prize pool amounted to €1.73 million.

There were a number of familiar faces who attended the tournament too, looking to increase on their career earnings and make a further name for themselves within the poker industry, such as Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier who was crowned last years World Poker Tour player of the year as well as defending WPT London Poker Classic champion Jake Cody.

The tournament brought together a host of names and it seemed that the tournament simply wasn't going to be given to the player with the biggest career earnings, they were going to have to work for their place at the final table.

With the tournament in full flow, there were the usual lucky draws, suck outs and completely dominant hands which seemed to plague a number of the bigger names in the player field, eventually these got the best of Grospellier and Cody and left them heading to the rails without even a sniff of any of the prize money, a disappointing showing from those two.

Although many of the bigger names crashed out of the tournament without hitting the money finishes, the same couldn't be said for Sam El Sayed as he began to take a handle on the tournament and build up a hefty chip stack which would be enough to see him reach the final table and not only that, go into the final leg of the tournament as chip leader.

Once the final table had been decided, you could see the hunger and desire that each and every player who were gracing the table had for winning the tournament from the moment that the play began, all players quickly making sure that they were more than willing to bet large amounts of chips on their hands.

Taking their seat that the final table, it must have been hard for players around El Sayad to avoid worrying about the stack of chips neatly stacked in from of him, even Ilan Bougjenah seemed to be concerned and he was the closest player to the 4.8 million chips that El Sayad was seated behind.

The action kicked off and it took an hour for the first casualty to be sent crashing out of the tournament, Georges Chehade making a move with a straight but running into Wilifred Bresson who had made a nut straight, leaving Chehade to leave the tournament in a hand that he simply couldn't lay down, cashing €34,442 for his 8^th place finish.

Front that moment, El Sayad looked to tighten his hold on the tournament, pressuring his opponents into making incorrect calls pre flop and beating them as one after another fell to the stands to collect their winnings until Nesrine Kourdourli beat the then chip leader in a hand and gained the chip leader status, leaving El Sayad a little shaken but still determined to take down the tournament.

Julien Robert was the next player out of the running to win the tournament as he clashed with El Sayad and was on the worse end of the deal, leaving the tournament in seventh place with €46,743 to collect at the cashiers booth.

After the loss of Robert, the chip lead seemed to be passed around the table, Kourdourli placing Ilan Boujenah all in with little more than a wheel draw and he wasn't pleased to find out that Boujenah was sat pretty with a top pair, winning almost 9 million chips from that single hand.

Franck Pepe was next to experience the lead, scoring a nut flush against the king high flush of El Sayad, capturing 6 million chips for his higher hand.

The action was exciting, fast paced and didn't seem to be letting up, Jean-Paul Pasqualini and William Bresson getting caught up in hands that they weren't able to win and seeing themselves relegated to the rails to watch the remainder of the tournament.

Now with only four players remaining El Sayad was seated behind the smallest stack at the table, a complete u-turn from the moment that the table action began, Nourdourli seated as the chip leader.

El Sayad had to act fast in order to last the tournament and was forced to grind his way through the next two eliminations, surpassing Kourdourli and Boujenah in the ladder as they both fell foul to premature play and crashed out of the running.

Now heads up Franck Pepe seemed to try to turn up the heat on El Sayad and things became a little loose but the final hand of the tournament was the biggest one, El Sayas making a raise to 800,000 chips from the big blind. The bet was called and the final two tangled as the flop rainbowed and offered very little to either player.

Making another stab at the pot El Sayad bet 800,000 more chips after the action was checked to him, which was then called by his opponent. The turn card presented J clubs and that was the point that seemed to break the resistance to place their stacks into the middle, El Sayad winning the hand after turning over pocket kings and was crowned the WPT Amneville champion, taking home the coveted WPT Winner Bracelet, €436,425 in prize money and entry into the WPT Championship which will be held at the Bellagio, Las Vegas in April of next year.