Four French Qualifiers -- Tribupoker, ROMCO22, nicbaboul and SmalMike

The French are well-represented in Vienna, with 53 players going after their dreams of becoming a sponsored player. Here are a few of the players who may end up being the next Fabrice Soulier or Antoine Saout.

If you follow French poker, you most likely know Anis Zenati, or Tribupoker, as he is known online and in France's large poker community. . The creator of Tribupoker.fr, one of France's biggest poker sites, is also a full-time financial analyst. He says he's not a fan of having free time, which is why he devotes hours upon hours to not only his own website, but also as a regular in many of Everest Poker's deep-stack multitable tournaments, particular the weekly $100,000 Guaranteed and monthly $250,000 Guaranteed. The Paris resident with incredible taste in designer sunglasses is long-time member of the Everest Poker community, mainly because of the wide offerings of affordable, deep-stack tournaments and live event satellites.

Once a civil engineer, Romain Cojean (ROMCO22) gave it all up three months ago. Serious about his poker career, Marseilles' ROMCO22 started honing his poker skills at the Shasta tables three years ago. "Everybody starts at Shasta," he says. Currently, ROMCO22 works with a poker coach in an effort to take his game even further. His specialty are MTTs, and he continues to dominate the Leaderboards at Everest. "I discovered poker with Everest, I started here; of course I have tried many others, but in my heart, it is Everest."

The poker blogger extraordinaire of Leparisien.fr, Nicolas Babel (nicbaboul) has been playing poker since his teens. He is consistently ranked amongst the top players in France among many poker publications (6th in 2009) and has been playing at Everest Poker for three years. Although nicaboul is a regular at the $2/$4 cash tables, he won his ticket to Vienna through an All-France Direct Entry.

While growing up, Michael Janot (smalMike) was one of France's brightest talents on the football field, playing on the highest level team. "The personal and team objectives in football are not unlike what you find in poker," says smalMike. "This is true of both football and poker." A two-time Live the Dream qualifier, SmalMike is also a member of the poker club Marseilles Hold'em, the first official partnership between Everest and France. After winning the Everest-sponsored Marseilles Hold'em Championship, smalMike played the Poker Stars 2007 EPT Barcelona. The married father of two works full time, but poker and travel are his two favorite hobbies, so a sponsorship might be something smalMike is ready for. "I think your personal, social, professional, poker life, all very close one to the other and you have to manage in the same way, but you must always try to find balance in life."