Largest Buy-In of the Series: $50,000 Poker Player's Championship
Welcome to what many call the most prestigious and elite event the world has to offer — the $50,000 Poker Player's Championship at the World Series of Poker. You can expect nothing but the best of the best to be on hand for this event and PokerNews is proud to be the ones bringing you all the live coverage from the floor.
Back in 2006, this event was first put on the map. The late David "Chip" Reese won the inaugural event and the trophy has since been named after the poker hall of famer. Reese is widely considered the best all-around player to ever have lived by fans and peers, making it quite the honor to win his trophy for taking down this event.
The event was originally a $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event that played as No-Limit Hold'em at the televised final table. In 2007, 2008 and 2009, the event was played in its complete format at the final table. The event was not televised in 2009 when David Bach won due to viewing numbers being down since the event's final table was aired in its complete H.O.R.S.E. format. Last year, the event went back to No-Limit Hold'em at the final table and was back on ESPN for everyone to see Michael Mizrachi claim gold. Also last year, the event was changed to an 8-Game format, which is also what it will be this year.
Let's take a look at this event's history.
Past WSOP $50,000 Poker Player’s Champions
| Year | Player | Prize | # of Entrants | Total Prize Pool |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Chip Reese | $1,716,000 | 143 | $6,864,000 |
| 2007 | Freddy Deeb | $2,276,832 | 148 | $7,104,000 |
| 2008 | Scotty Nguyen | $1,989,120 | 148 | $7,104,000 |
| 2009 | David Bach | $1,276,806 | 95* | $4,560,000 |
| 2010 | Michael Mizrachi | $1,559,046 | 116 | $5,568,000 |
*Event was not televised
Numbers were up last year from the previous year, but the field size has never grown to reach the 148 entrants that came out to play in 2007 and 2008. Hopefully, that will all change this year. One thing is for certain no matter the size of the field, and that's that there will be nothing but the biggest names in this event.
One of those big names is Phil Ivey and it has been speculated that with all of the recent developments involving Full Tilt Poker he'd be on hand for this event (FTP Suspended, FTP Reported Sold, FTP Class Action). Well, Erick Lindgren seems to have squashed those rumors on Twitter earlier today.
@EdogPoker: "For those speculating, Phil Ivey will not be playing the 50k today. He is still in Europe working to get things done."
Even without the phenom that is Ivey, you won't be disappointed with this field. You can expect Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein, Tom Dwan, Jason Mercier, Doyle Brunson, Chad Brown and many, many more to be here for the event.
Play is set to kick off at 5:00 PM PT. Be sure to grab some snacks and kick back behind your computer screen with your finger on the refresh button as we'll be popping out content all day long. While you wait for things to kick off, check out the July 2nd update from our very own Sarah Grant.