Aviation Club De France

The Aviation Club de France (ACF) was opened back in 1907 by a group of aviators, just four years after the Wright brothers had successfully flown a rickety looking bi-plane some 37 metres. The early adopters and innovators of flight were invariably brave young men with money to burn, setting a great precedent for the poker players that were to follow them. Although most players at the ACF now prefer someone else to do their flying for them the devil-may-care attitude still runs strongly through one of the finest looking, and certainly most stylish, card rooms you’re ever likely to play in.

Poker pro and former Aviation Club employee, Isabelle Mercier certainly thinks so anyway, ‘I’d say it’s the most beautiful card room in the world. The first time I entered I thought it was the Versailles Palace and I couldn’t believe it was where I’d actually be working. The building is over 100 years old and that explains the breathtaking atmosphere you instantly feel as you get in,’ says Mercier.

The Canadian pro was working as a corporate lawyer before she found her calling at the Aviation Club. While dreaming of travelling the world and living out of a suitcase, she sent job applications to casinos all over the world inspired by a previous stint working as a blackjack dealer in Montreal (to help pay her way through law school). ‘I ended up on the Champs-Élysées being a dealer for about two weeks, before the management position was offered to me. Basically, I ran the international tournaments, built the European leg of the World Poker Tour, created the advertisements and handled public relations,’ explains Mercier.

The Birth of Legends

The inclusion into the WPT was a huge coup for both the Aviation Club and Mercier who had the chance to travel the world promoting the ACF before she finally turned pro and joined Team PokerStars. The WPT adopted the Euro Finals of Poker into its schedule, which had been running at the Aviation Club for a number of years before – and continues to do so now. The main event was turned into the WPT Grand Prix de Paris, which ran from 2003 to 2006.

The tournament not only became a major part of the international tour but also kick-started the poker careers of some of the biggest names in the game today. Both David Benyamine and Roland de Wolfe won the Grand Prix, but for Benyamine it was particularly sweet as the Aviation Club had been his stomping ground for some time, ‘The WPT win is my favourite memory as it was the first big tournament I won. I started playing there in 2001 and other than the great game selection, it has a perfect location in the centre of Paris and knowledgeable people running it,’ said Benyamine.

The former tennis pro had already twice run up a big bankroll and lost it – once in Las Vegas and once in the lively cash games at the Aviation Club – by the time he won the Grand Prix in 2003. His €357,200 winnings for busting the final table was matched with some huge cash game scores in festival side action. Since then, Benyamine hasn’t looked back, ‘It made me realise that even if you might not be the best player, if you run good, play good and get lucky you have a chance to win at any time. The victory gave me faith in myself for the future.’

The most renowned moment in Aviation Club history has to be the 2004 clash between Australian motormouth Tony G and English grinder Surinder Sunar. The man from down under launched a verbal assault upon his opponents and tried his best to shake the normally unflappable Sunar by showing a huge multi-street bluff when heads up. Despite a powerhouse, if ungentlemanly, display by the Aussie, Sunar came through to claim his first major victory.

Although known to the wider world for its tournament action, the Aviation Club prides itself on holding some of the biggest and most prestigious cash games in Europe. English poker pro and 2007 Poker Million winner, Joe Beevers certainly agrees: ‘Some of the best games of my life have been in Paris. I know some people that moved there to play in the Aviation because of those cash games.’

Beevers and the rest of the Hendon Mob played their part in the Aviation Club’s rich history. Prior to their sponsorship from Prima Poker (and subsequently Full Tilt Poker) the quartet of Beevers, Ram Vaswani and brothers Ross and Barny Boatman were summoned over to the club by French pro Bruno Fitoussi to play an England versus France invitational. Fitoussi was joined by singer and WSOP bracelet holder Patrick Bruel, Omaha hi-lo specialist Claude Cohen and the up-and-coming Benyamine. The mob ended up winning by three matches to one to win the £20,000 purse that had been put up by the Aviation Club.

Dark Clouds Lift

In late 2006, French authorities decided to tighten legislation around online gaming making things more than a little problematic for the Aviation Club to host a tournament largely comprised of internet qualifiers. The Grand Prix de Paris was taken off the tour and an EPT event due to be held at the Casino Barrière de Deauville at the beginning of 2007 was also cancelled. But the Euro Finals of Poker have remained the flagship festival at the Aviation Club with a €5,000 buy-in.

However, the dark clouds over France are beginning to clear after the European Union reprimanded member states that have been imposing draconian measures in order to protect state-run gambling services. The EPT in Deauville is also back up and running. With a card room and all round poker experience that epitomises elegance and sophistication, the Aviation Club de France should be high on any poker player’s European grand tour list.