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World Series of Poker: 2006 WSOP tournament |
| Stay informed with the latest happenings at the 2006 WSOP |
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 Barry Greenstein, Kid Poker, and many others were vocal in their complaints about the schedule for the 2006 series when it was published at the beginning of the year, but if there is one thing Harrah’s Entertainment is good at, it is trend watching. |
 When the 2006 World Series of Poker got underway in the summertime in Las Vegas, players noticed a few things that were different from the year before. And one thing stood out immediately as each player took his seat in the first game of the season. An oversized chip with no monetary value that, players were told, was their "All In chip." |
 A man who goes by the name of "Li’lholdem" does not look like he lives old enough to play in a casino, but despite his looks, he knows his poker game. Chad "Li’lholdem" Batista is old enough at 25 and he is the new champ after winning the $5,000 championship at the WSOP Circuit Tour at Caesars Indiana. |
 If you are a big fan of the World Series of Poker, or know someone who is, then there are a few special guests that will make someone’s Christmas a happy one, all for $40 and under. |
 Winner - Kevin Nathan
Prize - $171,987
Event 43, the fourth of "second chance" events, finished on August 8th. 420 players in this $1,500 buy-in event accumulated a prize pool of $573,300, and here is a list of the final table players and their winnings. |
Winner - James Mitchell
Prize - $153,173
The "second chance" events are running out as the 2006 World Series of Poker season draws to a close. In the Amazon Room, while one event starts up and the Big Event winds to a close over the next few days, Event 42, a $1,500 No-Limit Texas Holdem tournament came to a close. 365 players created a prize pool of $494,130. After the first day only a dozen players were left. |
Winner - Paul Kobel
Prize - $316,144
With the emphasis on the Main Event going on in the same tournament room, the second chance events such as Event 41, a $1500 No-Limit Texas Holdem are often overshadowed. These events are genuine bracelet earning events, however, and often has sizable enough fields to make them profitable to play. 1007 players entered this particular event, creating a prize pool of $1,374,555. After the first day of play, 48 players remained. |
Winner - Praz Bansi
Prize - $230,209
Last year the winner was John Pires who beat a field of 971 entrants in order to take home a first prize of $220,935, and the coveted WSOP bracelet. This year there were 1,100 entrants and a prize pool was $1,001,000 with the first place taking home $230,209. |
Winner - Daniel Alaei
Prize - $430,698
Five thousand dollars is a lot to play a game of poker. Ten thousand is a lot more, of course, but at least with the Main Event once you pay it you know that’s your total investment. Not so with Event 38, a $5,000 re-buy event. With only 81 players this year this might be the smallest field yet at the Rio, but the prize pool is no joke. With 159 re-buys that makes a total of $1,164,048 up for grabs. With such a small field, everybody likes theier chances. Now they just have to be good at No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball. |
Winner - James Gorham
Prize - $765,226
On July 28th a $10,000 No-Limit Holdem Event will begin that the whole poker world has been waiting for. For the players of Event 37, a $1,500 No-Limit Holdem Event, however, the action was in the here and now. Many of the over two thousand players in this event would not have a chance at the glory of the Main Event, and were after the big pay day first prize would offer on July 27th, $765,226. |
Winner - Victoriano Perches
Prize - $157,338
The buy in isn’t outrageous, and the field isn’t that large (compared to the new standards of today), yet this could be one of the more difficult events at this or any World Series of Poker. Poker is poker, as they say, but this is tournament poker, and a different kind of tournament poker at that. In the shootout format each player that wants to advance must do so by winning his table, being the only survivor and holder of all the chips. |
Winner - Patrick Poels
Prize - $172,091
Last year it was Steve Hohn of Overland Park, KS, who mastered the field of 595 players and managed a hefty $156,985 first prize. This year it was nearly 800 players who started off this two day event, working up to a prize pool of about $717,080. Whenever a two day event has this many players, it usually means two very long days. |
Winner - Phil Hellmuth
Prize - $631,863
Every time a re-buy event takes place everyone wants to know what Daniel Negreanu is going to do. The famous Kid Poker loves the re-buy events, but to be fair, so do a lot of other pro poker players. With the bankroll to support the idea, these pros like to use the power of the rebuy to take huge chances on building monster chips stacks in the early stages of the events, using those chip stacks to carry them through the later rounds when rebuys are not allowed. To this year’s first re-buy event Negreanu reportedly came prepared to make 30 re-buys. In the second event he made not just 30 rebuys, but 48. This plus his initial buy in put him just under fifty grand to play this one thousand dollar event, and he didn’t even make the money. |
Winner - James Richburg
Prize - $139,576
Poker players could often due with a bit of humor, sitting long hours suffering bad posture and bad lighting, fighting the smells and the boredom that can come from marathon poker sessions. Then comes a game like Seven Card Razz, the game that everyone says they hate, but that at least six hundred people were willing to endure for the chance at a hundred grand first prize. |
Winner - Jason Lester
Prize - $550,764
Anytime you put a price tag on an event of five thousand bucks or more, you are limiting the amount of dead money in the event, at least in theory. Main Event aside (which has so many sponsors into the event that it would not be ridiculous to call half the players dead money) the pricier events tend to have fewer players. This year, however, the trend of more players continues as 378 entrants signed up to play Event 32. The prize pool was $1,776,600 with a first prize payout of $550,764. |
Winner - Justin Scott
Prize - $842,262
This is technically a new event this year, as last year there were only two No-Limit Texas Holdem events with a $2,000 buy in, and Event 31 makes the third such event for 2006. The previous two were Event 6, won by Mark Vos for $803,274, first of 1,918 other players; and Event 22 won by Jeff Madsen for $660,948, first of 1,579 players. Despite speculation that the field would drop for this third event, it instead jumped to 2050, creating a prize pool of $3,731,000, with $842,262 going to the winner. |
Winner - Jeff Madsen
Prize - $643,381
The $5,000 No-Limit Shorthanded event brought out the big time Texas Holdem players, the ones who liked to wrestle with a different set of odds and strategies than those required by a full table event with nine or more players at the table. A difference of three players may not seem like much, but in a game like No-Limit Texas Holdem, it can mean the world. |
Winner - John Gale
Prize - $374,849
What was supposed to be a two day event at this year’s World Series of Poker got extended to three days when, on Day Two, Thursday July 20th, a late start and a late finish prompted tournament organizers to put off the play of the final table to Day Three, Friday July 21st. Event 29 had 562 entries, exceeding the number of last year’s participants. The prize pool was a commanding $1,405,000, and the winner would take home $374,849. |
Winner - Benjamin Lin
Prize - $256,620
Last year 192 players sat at the felt at the World Series of Poker who were willing to put up five thousand dollars to play a game of Seven-Card Stud. The prize pool was $902,400 and it was the pro from Odense, Denmark, Jan Sorensen, who claimed victory and $293,275. This year the field actually dwindled, something that is a rare event at the Rio All-Suite Hotel Casino, as only 182 players ponied up the dough. The prize was the same, but the prize pool was less, only $855,400. |
Winner - Mats Rahmn
Prize - $655,141
This two day event turned on the steam around noon on Tuesday, July 18th, churning through the 2126 entrants until a much smaller field of 121 remained. The action saw some exciting moments early on when Atlanta pro Josh Arieh doubled up around the same time John Juanda was busting out. And Arieh busted out himself not long after. Ladies Event winner Mary Jones tried her hand, but failed to make the final table, as did Joe Sebok, Ron Rose, Carlos Mortensen and many others. |
Winner - Eric Froehlich
Prize - $299,675
Where did this event come from? Those following the unfolding of events at the World Series of Poker this year were in for a bit of a surprise when a new event popped up on their radar screen. Starting on Monday, July 17th, this two day Omaha event with rebuys must have been some kind of contingency play, but for what set of circumstances is unknown. The very event number, 26b, suggests that it was to be squeezed in between Event 26 and Event 27. |
Winner - Ralph Perry
Prize - $207,817
The name of the game was Pot-Limit Omaha, and the poker pros and poker amateurs alike came to play, and to play to win, at this Event 26 of the 2006 World Series of Poker. |
Winner - David Pham
Prize - $240,222
The shootout event this year at the World Series of Poker has been the topic of many a conversation both in the Rio in Las Vegas and all around the world for those following the WSOP. A shootout means different strategies based on the different tournament structure, and even the payouts are handled a little differently. |
Winner - Scott Clements
Prize - $301,175
While last year the buy in was a tad bit cheaper, the game was still the same. Omaha Hi/Low Split, with 359 players slapping down $2,500 to take their shot at the bigger parts of the $825,700 prize pool. In the end it was the son of Doyle Brunson - the Godfather of Poker - himself taking the WSOP bracelet. This year the buy in was $3,000 which, despite a drop of entries to 352, pushed the prize pool up over a million dollars to $1,000,056. |
Winner - Ian Johns
Prize - $291,755
The previous year the buy in was the same, but the number of players, and hence the prize pool, was actually greater than this year. With 406 players putting up three grand each, the prize pool was $1,120,560, with $347,385 going to Las Vegas, NV resident Todd "Dan Druff" Witteles as the champ. This year the $3,000 buy in only generated a Prize Pool of $941,160, as only 341 players took the field. |
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Considered by many to be a "Second Chance" kind of event, being the second of its kind this season at the World Series of Poker, Event 22 was a big event last year. Erik Seidel put a hurting on his opponents, outlasting 1402 other players to take $611,795 out of a $2,581,520 prize pool. 1,579 people took their second chance this year, putting up the two grand to play poker in the Amazon Room at the Rio All-Suite Hotel Casino. |
Winner - William Chen
Prize - $442,511
Last year the winner of the $2,500 No-Limit Holdem Shorthanded event was one Isaac "The General" Galazan, hailing from Bangkok, Thailand. The General beat out over five hundred players to claim his $315,125 prize, and with 740 players joining in the fun this year, someone was going to walk away with quite a bit more. The hundreds of players churned away on day one until only three dozen were left, ready to do battle again the next day. At the end of day two, only six remained, with pros like Corey Chesnerick and Phil Gordon out of the running, but in the money. |
Winner - Chip Reese
Prize - $1,784,640
Normally when poker fans read about how any particular event went down during the World Series of Poker, they like to compare the previous year’s winner, prize pool, and first place money. This year they won’t be able to do that with Event 20, the H.O.R.S.E. event that is debuting at the Rio. Comprised of five different events, with a sixth as the final table competition, H.O.R.S.E. has long been called for by the pros, who see it as a truer indicator of who is the best poker player than No-Limit Texas Holdem alone. |
Winner - Clare Miller
Prize - $247,814
In 2005 Paul McKinney was the man to take down the field of senior players, winning not only the coveted WSOP bracelet, but huge respect as the oldest player who ever did so at eighty years old. 874 players took each other on with a prize pool of $750,750, and Paul took home over two hundred grand. As Paul registered to play again this year, the question floating around the Amazon Room was would this player manage a fantastic back to back win, and take it again this year? 1184 players meeting the requirements to play in the seniors event this year paid their thousand dollars and took their seats, eager to prove their mastery of the game of No-Limit Texas Holdem. |
Winner - Eric Kesselman
Prize - $311,403
Last year it was Edward Moncada from Schenectady, NY who won $298,070 as the first place finisher, beating out a field of 540 players and taking home the biggest chunk of the $993,600 prize pool. This year only fifty more players joined the party, making it 590 to go. At the end of the Day One 22 players remained, all of them going to walk in the money with at least five grand. |
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