The past five days in the WSOP belonged primarily to the tournament, which has been labeled as the most demanding event in the world for several years. We are talking about the $50,000 Poker Players Championship, which, due to its huge buy-in and the fact that it is a demanding mix of nine poker disciplines, regularly attracts the best poker players in the world.
This year was no exception, welcoming a total of 99 participants in the battles for the unique Chip Reese trophy. Record holder and three-time champion Michael Mizrachi was absent from the game this year, on the other hand, two-time champions Brian Rast and Dan "Jungleman" Cates tried their luck in the third. The champion of the last two years, Jungleman, enriches his participation in this tournament every year with a unique costume, while this year he chose the iconic Terminator. Even that didn't prevent him from hearing "Hasta la vista, baby" during day 2.
In the end, only the best five players made it through four difficult days, among whom the fantastic-looking Phil Ivey, who for a long time cherished the hope of a record 11th bracelet, had to satisfy with the 6th place. On the contrary, the already mentioned two-time champion Brian Rast got there, but he was loosing significantly to the chip leader Talal Shakerchi.
The British businessman and poker matador found the slayer only at the very end of the tournament, as he was able to fight his way to heads-up. The two-time champion of this event, Brian Rast, went heads-up with a massive 5:1 lead, and he didn't leave anything to chance - it was decided after only ten minutes! Runner-up Shakerchi took home $818,756, and on the other hand, the fantastic Brian Rast was rewarded with $1,324,747 along with his third title and sixth bracelet overall!
After a demanding 13-hour final, the champion of the online $3,200 NLH event was crowned the day before yesterday, in which Jeremy Ausmus went on to win his sixth bracelet. He managed to battle his way in the field of 321 players, and he took home the aforementioned bracelet with the number 6, which makes him one of only 18 players in history who won six or more!
Slowly we are approaching the start date of the main tournament of the entire event (July 3), which this year has a clear goal - to beat the record from 2006. Online and live qualifications from all over the world, which promised 600 qualifiers, should have greatly helped this. today we already know that this number has been surpassed! A total of 774 players will go to Vegas to fulfill their dream, as reported by the WSOP on its official Twitter:
Just for comparison, last year about 300 players qualified for the Main Event this way, but in the end it was historically the second largest Main Event in history. So will it be possible to beat the 8,772 entries from 2006 and set a new record this year? What do you think?
Source: WSOP, PokerNews, Twitter, PokerStrategy
