Currently a resident of Las Vegas, Nevada, Ben Lamb is 27-year-old professional poker player. Lamb attended Jenks High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before graduating in 2004. He went on to college at the Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.
Before turning to poker professionally, Lamb worked as a dealer at Tulsa’s Cherokee Casino. His best year in poker came in 2011, when he was named the CardPlayer Player of the Year and also the WSOP Player of the Year. Lamb was also a part of the WSOP November Nine and finished in third place. He captured his first WSOP gold bracelet in 2011 and has more than $6,000,000 in WSOP winnings already.
Biggest Cash: 3rd-place finish in 2011 WSOP Main Event — $4,021,138
At the young age of 25, Philipp Gruissem has had some terrific success in European poker tournaments and hopes that continues in this event. The native of Brighton in Germany hopes to follow fellow countryman Pius Heinz in bringing another giant victory and title from the World Series of Poker back to his home country.
With three six-figure scores in the last year, including two first place finishes and two third-place finishes in European tournaments, Gruissem now has more than $2 million in lifetime earnings in less than three years on the tournament circuit.
Biggest Win: Won High Roller event at EPT London — $703,657
Jens Kyllönen is a 22-year-old professional poker player from Finland. Kyllönen's poker tournament results and statistics include one first-place finish, two final table appearances, and six in-the-money finishes for $1,393,300 in total poker tournament event earnings over the years. A well-established online player who is known as a pot-limit Omaha specialist, Kyllönen's resume includes a first-place finish on the European Poker Tour, where he earned over $1,100,000 at the age of 19.
Biggest Cash: Won 2009 EPT Scandinavian Open — $1,120,815
A well-known and established professional poker player, Phil Ivey currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada. At 35-years of age, Ivey is an eight-time World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner, good for fifth all-time. Known in the poker community as one of the best all-around players in the world, Ivey is adept at both tournament and cash game poker.
Born in Riverside, California, Ivey’s family moved to New Jersey when he was a young child. Ivey started to play poker with co-workers in New Jersey and has since accumulated more than $16 million in lifetime tournament winnings. He is the youngest player to attain eight WSOP gold bracelets, all of which were in events other than no-limit hold’em. Ivey plays in the world’s highest stakes cash games and has a room named after him at the Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. This year, Ivey has made five WSOP final tables to push his WSOP career earnings to $6,249,783.
Biggest Win: Won 2012 Aussie Millions High Roller Challenge — $2,058,948
Currently residing in Las Vegas, Nevada, Cary Katz is the Chief Executive Officer of the seventh-largest student loan company in the United States, the College Loan Corporation (CLC). In 1999, Katz founded the CLC and has helped more than 800,000 students providing them with over $19 billion in college loans. This 41-year-old is the acting chairman of a Stop Child Predators, nonprofit organization founded to help protect children and hold their victimizers accountable. Katz has a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from the University of Georgia and currently lives with his wife and six children. Katz is also a successful poker player. He made his first appearance in the winner’s circle on the tournament trail in 2004. Since then he has cashed 41 times, made 21 final tables, won two titles and racked up $681,203 in career earnings.
Born in Kiev, Ukraine, Eugene Katchalov is a 31-year-old professional poker player who has been residing in Brooklyn, New York, since he moved there with his family at the age of 10. Katchalov graduated from New York University with a degree in business and has been playing poker professionally since 2003. He is a very successful tournament poker player, with lifetime career earnings of more than $7 million.
Katchalov is the winner of the largest payout (up to the start of the 2010-11 season) for a non-championship event in the World Poker Tour (WPT), earning $2,482,605 with a win of the 2007 Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. He’s cashed at the World Series of Poker 25 times, including a third-place finish in a 2010 $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. event for $248,831, four more final table appearances and a Top 40 finish in the 2009 Main Event. In 2011 he took it to the next level, earning a World Series of Poker winner’s bracelet when he took down a $1,500 Seven Card Stud event for $122,909.
Biggest Win: Won 2007 Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic — $2,482,605
The player introductions have been made and Guy Laliberté has given the traditional, "Shuffle up and deal." With that, this historic tournament is underway.
There was a rumor floating around that Guy Laliberté was going to move all in blind the first hand, so when the first hand was dealt, we were watching intently. The action folded to Tobias Reinkemeier, who opened for a raise, and Phil Ruffin mucked his hand.
We couldn't hear exactly what Laliberté said to his tablemates, but it looked like: "I said I was going to go all in the first hand."
He looked at his cards and mucked however, and Reinkemeier took down the blinds.
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