On Saturday, April 21, the World Poker Tour Championship kicked off from the Bellagio in Las Vegas. This $25,000 buy in event represents the finale of Season Five of the WPT. The winners of each tournament over the course of the season have been entered along with anyone who wants to pony up the hefty buy in. PocketFivesLive.com will be on the scene of the WPT Championship, tracking PocketFivers who will be a part of this premiere live poker event. The final table is set for Friday, April 27. The event also marks the final broadcast of WPT programming on The Travel Channel. 
The 2006 WPT Championship in Season Four was won by poker pro Joe Bartholdi. He took home $3.7 million and a share of poker lore. Past champions also include Tuan Le (Season Three), Martin de Knijff (Season Two), and the very first WPT Championship victor, Alan Goehring. Any winner of an event during Season Five of the WPT has an automatic entry into the WPT Championship. They include PocketFiver Ryan “Daut44” Daut (pictured at left), who took down the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure back in January for $1.5 million. Daut was crowned as a protégé of CardRunners.com owner Taylor "Green Plastic" Caby. According to Caby, “Although Ryan was relatively unknown in the poker community until his PCA win, his poker intellect is top notch. As long as he plays his smart, thinking style, he should have a chance to go very far in this tournament with a little luck. I think it also will help him that he knows the styles of many of the ‘name’ pros while they probably still don't know very much about his game.”
PocketFivers expected to enter the event include Chris “cmkpics” Kennedy (pictured at right), who won UltimateBet’s Live Like a Pro promotion. He is entered into several live events after winning the promotion several weeks ago and will next compete in the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event. CardRunners.com instructor and cash game specialist Brian “sbrugby” Townsend will also be at the Bellagio. Caby comments on his site’s instructor: ‘The key to Brian's success will be his ability to stay patient. This is easier said than done for someone who is used to playing many tables at a time and rarely plays tournaments. If he stays focused and plays his ‘A’ game, he should be able to accumulate a lot of chips in the early going and be a major factor.”
Other members of the PocketFives community who will vie for a piece of the WPT Championship prize pool include Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby, who has already won two preliminary events at the Bellagio. PocketFivesLive.com Tournament Reporter Court Harrington comments, “A great player like Jared running hot is hard to stop, so I expect to see Waco deep in the WPT Championship.” Tim “Tmay420” West (pictured at left), who has been on a tear online recently, will also be in attendance. Harrington claims, “Tim has a knack for keeping himself out of trouble and the extra deep starting stack should give him even more opportunity to pick his spots and put his skill advantage 
to use.” Then there’s Joe Sebok (pictured at right), who was last seen donning a PocketFives t-shirt in an episode of Raw Vegas TV’s Prop Bets with Gavin Smith. Harrington talks about this pro poker player and PocketFiver: “The more I see Joe play and talk to him about poker, the more and more I am impressed with his ability. He has an intuitive feel for the game that is tremendous and he has combined that with a lot of hard work to continue to learn and grow as a player.”The overall field, according to Harrington, will put every poker player to the test: “This will be one of the toughest fields of the WPT season. At a $25,000 buy in event, there won't be any easy starting tables and the field will be saturated with winning players with high expectations.” Check out PocketFivesLive.com for all of the action from the WPT Championship.
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