Tournament of Champions Returns to WSOP

Last week, officials at the WSOP tweeted that a major announcement was going to be made on Monday. Monday came and details have been released regarding the âAll-Star Eventâ that was hinted about earlier in the month. The WSOP has brought back the storied Tournament of Champions. The event will be held June 27th and will be played to the final table. Once that has been reached, the remaining nine players will return on July 4th to play for the $1 Million prize pool.
Five entrants have already locked up their seats. The winners of the three previous TOC events have automatic bids.  Those are Annie Duke, Mike Matusow, and Mike Sexton. Something that I personally suggested looks to have been implemented with both the WSOP Vegas and WSOP Europe champions getting an automatic bid. Therefore, Joe Cada and Barry Shulman, come on down. Two spots will be âsponsors exemptionsâ and details will be forthcoming. Apparently these two seats will be open for the general public to play their way into the event. (Or that is what the WSOPâs site hinted at anyway.)
20 of the players will be voted in by the fans. Any living WSOP bracelet winner is eligible to be voted into the TOC. The top 20 vote getters will be extended invites to play. If any turn down the invite, then the next highest vote getter claims their spot. (Hint: Voting for Russ Hamilton is probably a waste of time, although he is eligible.)
I have cast my votes and they are as follows.
Phil Hellmuth
Johnny Chan
Doyle Brunson
Erik Seidel
Phil Ivey
Billy Baxter
Layne Flack
Jay Heimowitz
T.J. Cloutier
Men Nguyen
Barbara Enright
Chris Ferguson
Annette Obrestad
Jamie Gold
Jeff Lisandro
Chris Moneymaker
Note that my list primarily follows the list of 27 that I called for in my prior blog about the All-Star event. Since they stuck to âbracelet winners onlyâ, I couldnât vote for Jeffrey Pollack. Annie, Joe, and Jeff were already in so I didnât have to use votes there. I wound up with four free votes so I went back over the names again.
Dan Harrington I have always had a lot of respect for regarding his NL game. He also put together one of the greatest back to back final table runs in WSOP Main Event history. Scotty Nguyen has five bracelets, including both the Main Event and the $50,000 HORSE event. He is the ONLY pro to hold that distinction, baby. I selected Greg Raymer because I do like his game overall and he has proven that he can play more than just Holdem. Iâve also played with Greg and do find him a interesting character to talk to. My last vote went to someone that I really should have probably included on my other list and that is Allen Cunningham. Five WSOP bracelets and a Main Event final table run are definitely worthy of being in a TOC.
For those of you wondering why Daniel Negreanu is not on my list, I personally donât feel he is one of the top 20 bracelet winners of all-time. If it were 25 or 30, then maybe he would be on my list. If this were WPT or an overall Poker TOC, then ya, Daniel would be in the top 20. But, this is a WSOP top 20.
Donât like my picks or think you can do better? Go to the WSOPâs website and make your own picks. You can also see the top vote getters so far.
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