One of the biggest and most prestigious tournaments on the European poker calendar began last night in southern France, as the Palm Beach Casino in Cannes opened its doors for the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event.

The €8,500 Main Event is traditionally one of the most popular events to be played on the European mainland, and was last year won by Team PokerStars pro and NAPT Mohegan Sun back-to-back champion Vanessa Selbst, who scooped a €1.3 million first prize for taking home the title.

Last year's event also caught media attention due to a widely reported cheating scandal, which resulted in German pro Ali Tekintamgac's disqualification from the final table.

Tekintamgac was kicked out of the tournament after it was revealed that he had used fake reporters and bloggers to hint his opponent's hole cards to him on his way through the tournament, and has since been declared persona non grata in the international tournament community.

Now, one year after, the Partouche Poker Tour has long moved forward from the incident, and with 318 registered players, the event is once again looking to be a success, promising a €4 million guaranteed prize pool and lots of world class poker.

Among the registered players are a number of big names, including Jean-Robert Bellande, Arnaud Mattern, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Laak, Men "The Master" Nguyen and last year's winner, Vanessa Selbst.

So far, Selbst is doing well in her title defense, stacking up close to 90,000 chips from a starting stack of 30,000.

Chip leader after yesterday's Day 1a, however, is Romanian 2011 PCA third place finisher, Anton Ionel, who ended his day with a massive 179,800 stack, giving him a temporary lead ahead of today's Day 1b.