In tournament poker there is no doubt that the main event at the World Series of Poker is the marquee event, but once you get beyond that tournament there are a handful of other high profile events that help define the poker community. Among the elite tournaments are the championship events of the World Poker Tour and the European Poker Tour, along with a few other high profile events including the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure each year in the Bahamas, the LA Poker Classic, and the other Bellagio WPT events throughout the year.Of those tournaments though, the WPT Championship at the Bellagio each April arguably carries the most prestige along with the hefty $25,000 entry fee. This year entrants will begin with 100,000 chips making this a super deep stacked tournament early on and continuing deep into the tournament with players having many more chips in front of them relative to the blinds.
Last year 545 found their way into the event with David Chiu making an epic comeback to defeat Gus Hansen in heads up play. Chiu earned over $3.3 million for his victory while Hansen picked up $1.7 million for his runner up finish. At one point during heads up play Hansen had a 6 to 1 chip lead over Chiu, but David stayed patient and was able to battle back.
Cory “UGOTPZD” Carroll received $593,000 for his 4th place finish and was a serious contender for the title until and was in a position to take a huge chunk of chips from Hansen and assume the chip lead in 4 handed play if he could dodge a diamond on the river. Hansen made his flush though and instead of being the chip leader Carroll was left with a 4th place finish. Tom “durrrr” Dwan was also in the hunt last year ending up with a 9th place finish for $184,000.
Other PocketFivers making the money included Bryan “babbeatninja” Devonshire (12th), Steve “MrSmokey1” Billirakis (23rd), Peter “#1Pen” Neff (44th), Matt “Plattsburgh” Vengrin (47th), Joe Sebok (48th), Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen (58th), Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby (59th) and Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach (60th).
All WPT events at the Bellagio pay out 100 spots as long as at least 400 people enter the tournament. The flat structured payout creates an interesting money bubble earlier than the norm in these tournaments and then has a long period of no money increase before even the smaller pay jumps start to kick in at 50th place.
The WPT Championship is also the last major event many players play before the World Series of Poker starts at the end of May. The choice to take the month off between the WPT Championship and the WSOP has become more and more common among players since the Mandalay Bay and Mirage events that used to occur in May have been removed from the WPT schedule.
Anyone playing in the WPT Championship can Register Here for coverage on PocketFivesLive.com. The action, and the coverage, begin on Saturday April 18th at noon Pacific Time.
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