If the rest of the World Series of Poker competitions are anywhere
near as fiercely contested and skilled as the 2006 WSOP Tournament
of Champions, poker fans are in for a real feast of excitement and
big money action.
The free roll tourney was held earlier this week and attracted large
crowds of spectators to the Rio casino-hotel in Las Vegas to watch
the exclusive (only 27 players were invited) competition featuring
some of the top players in the business.
Those 27 players were assembled from the final table at last years
WSOP final, the twelve World Series of Poker Circuit event winners
and six Harrah's sponsor exemptions. With 2 days of play scheduled
and a prize pool worth $2 million on this event alone, it had all
the makings of an epic poker spectacle.
The final table of 10 looked like this and was decided by some scintillating
poker as the champs tried to knock each other out of contention in
a match that was destined to run for 16 hours:
One: WSOPC event winner Thang "Kido" Pham, 238,000 chips
Two: Former World Champion Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, 166,000
Three: Online poker pro Darrell "Gigabet" Dicken, 154,000
Four: Defending TOC champion Mike "The Mouth" Matusow, 213,000
Five: 2004 World Series Player of the Year Daniel Negreanu, 443,000
Six: Chip Leader and UK player Andrew Black, 942,000
Seven: World Poker Tour commentator Mike Sexton, 161,000
Eight: "The Great Dane" Gus Hansen, 74,000
Nine: Circuit event winner Chris Reslock, short stacked at 64,000
Ten: Poker pro Daniel Bergsdorf, 245,000
Adding to the tension was the certainty that the first of these champs
to be knocked out would be outside the money bubble and would leave
with nothing for his efforts. Only 9 players would receive part of
the prize pool.
The tension didn't last long, as Hansen was nailed only ten hands
of play into the action, starting a war of attrition which ended with
a heads up tussle between Daniel Negreanu ($1.488 million) and Mike
Sexton ($1.212 million) Experts defined the following match as one
of the finest showcases of skilled poker they had yet seen as the
two players tried to outwit each other over the next 300 hands, with
chip totals swinging one way and then the other.
Despite play running into the early hours of the morning, the spectators
had plenty to to keep them awake over the five hours of this final
heads up struggle for supremacy. In the end it was an exhausted Sexton
who triumphed, collecting the winner's reward of $ 1 million. Negreanu's
payday was somewhat more meager but worth the effort at $325 000
"You know, sometimes I'm glad I have a day job," Sexton
joked as the Tournament Of Champions trophy was awarded to him. "I'm
proud of the way I played and maybe I proved that the "old school"
guys still got some game!"