With such a stacked field, it's no surprise to see some intriguing table lineups. We'll providing you those lineups a couple tables at a time. Here's a look at the first two:
The Tan Section of the Amazon Room is full as some of poker's biggest names have taken their seat. It's no surprise that the rail is jammed pack with railbirds, each looking to catch a glance of their favorite players.
The defending champ, Brian Rast, wasn't here at the start of the tournament, so Tournament Director Jack Effel allowed 2010 champ Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi to draw for the first game, which was Stud Eight or Better.
Effel then asked 2009 champ David Bach to give the traditional, "Shuffle up and deal!"
With that, the cards are in the air here in the 2012 WSOP Poker Player's Championship.
Since 2006, the World Series of Poker has hosted a $50,000 buy-in Poker Players Championship. For four years, the tournament featured a H.O.R.S.E. format and was designed to test players on their all-around abilities. The first-ever winner was David “Chip” Reese, who some believe is the best player of all time. While Reese passed away in 2007, his legacy lives on with the David “Chip” Reese Trophy, which is awarded to the winner of this event
Freddy Deeb, Scotty Nguyen and David Bach were all recipients of that trophy in 2007, 2008 and 2009 respectively. Then, in 2010, the event was improved to an 8-Game Mix format, adding No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-limit Omaha, and 2-7 Triple Draw to the rotation and thus testing players’ talents in even more variants. It was also that year that the final table was switched to strictly no limit hold’em to make the television broadcast more appealing to viewers.
That year, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi laid claim to the title to win his first WSOP bracelet. Last year, Brian Rast defeated a stacked final table that included Ben Lamb, Scott Seiver, Matt Glantz, Owais Ahmed and Phil Hellmuth. In a particularly amusing heads-up battle with Hellmuth, Rast managed to deny the then 11-time bracelet winner his 12th bracelet for the third time that series and capture the $1,720.328 first-place prize.
Unfortunately, this year’s tournament will not be recorded for broadcast on ESPN, which means numbers may be down from last year’s field of 128; in fact, we expect they’ll be more on par with 2009’s 95 entrants, another year where television coverage was not provided. Another consequence, for better or worse, of no television coverage is that the final table will remain 8-game throughout.
Who will become this year’s Poker Player’s Champion? It’ll take five days to find out, but the path to the David “Chip” Reese Trophy begins today.
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
2011
Brian Rast
$1,720,328
128
$6,144,000
*Event was not televised
Action is set to kick off at 5 PM PST, which is about 15 minutes from now. Be sure to join us then as we bring you all the happenings from the 2012 WSOP $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship.