The 2014 WSOP's Main Event kicked off this weekend on Saturday. There were 771 players that sat down at the tables at the Rio for Day 1A of this year's $10,000,000 1st place guarantee event. No other than the legendary 2005 main event winner Joe Hachem kicked off the event by announcing the classic "Shuffle up and Deal".
Day 1A gathered some famous poker faces. No less than 5 previous gold bracelet winners were among the participants: Tom McEvoy, Johnny Chan, Chris Moneymaker, Greg Merson, and Ryan Riess.
Once Day 1A concluded, the chip leader was Sweden's Martin Jacobson who bagged 200,100 chips for round 2. The young Swede has earned a total of $1,204,983 in WSOP winnings where the major part comes from finishing on 6th place in 2013's Event #47: One Drop High Rollers No-Limit Hold'em where he won $807,427.
Scotty Nguyen and Tom McEvoy were elected to the Poker Hall of Fame last Friday. The two former world champions have some impressive resumes and both have contributed to the growth of the game. In total, they been nominated a combined 9 times (McEvoy 5 times and Scotty 4 times) before they finally were choosen.
The finalists for the 2011 Hall of Fame were announced yesterday. The 10 players who have the chance to get inducted this time are the following: Annie Duke, Barry Greenstein, Jennifer Harman, Marcel Luske, Linda Johnson, Jack mcClelland, John Juanda, Tom McEvoy, Scotty Nguyen and Huck Seed. Of the 10 nominees, 4, Greenstein, Johnson, McEvoy, and Nguyen were nominated both in 2009 and 2010.
Its soon time for the European Poker Tour to make another stop. This time it will be in Berlin instead of Dortmund where it has been played in the previous seasons. Anyhow, PokerStars is expecting even more players this year than last year because of the new location and the €1 million first place prize guarantee (667 players took part last year - Sandra Naujoks won and took home the first prize of €917,000).
Team PokerStars Pros Sebastian Ruthenberg, Benjamin Kang, Johannes Steindl, Arnaud Mattern, Tom McEvoy, William Thorson are all scheduled to take part in Day 1a of the Main Event, which will give the tournament the best possible start!
2009's candidates that have the chance to get inducted to the poker hall of fame are Phil Ivey, Barry Greenstein, Dan Harrington, Tom McEvoy, Men Nguyen, Scotty Nguyen, Mike Sexton, Eric Seidel, Tom Dwan, and Daniel Negreanu.
The 3 big favorites of these 10 players are Mike Sexton, Phil Ivey, and Tom McEvoy. All three have won bracelets and millions of dollars in WSOP throughout the years and also done a great job for poker and its future.
The hottest candidate of these 3 however, is Mike Sexton. Sexton has been a poker pro at the highest stakes for many years and also been the main commentator for WPT, been the ambassador for Party Poker, writing for the biggest poker magazines and much more. If you look at the requirements for getting into the Poker Hall of Fame bellow, you will understand why he's the hottest candidate.
Carlos Mortensen, who had a great chiplead before the final table, went to everyone's surprise out on 5th place. Instead it came to be a battle between Tom McEvoy (1983 Main Event winner) and Robert Varkonyi (2002 Main Event Winner) in heads-up.
20 poker players that all have won the WSOP Main Event took part in the same tournament (Champions Invitational) yesterday. In the lead before tonight's final table is Carlos "The Matador" Mortensen (42,375 chips) with Tom McEvoy close behind (31,000 chips).
The 2014 WSOP's Main Event kicked off this weekend on Saturday. There were 771 players that sat down at the tables at the Rio for Day 1A of this year's $10,000,000 1st place guarantee event. No other than the legendary 2005 main event winner Joe Hachem kicked off the event by announcing the classic "Shuffle up and Deal".
