World Series of Poker – First Halftime

With the conclusion of Event #33 last night, we can say that the first halftime of this year’s World Series of Poker is officially over. It is a custom practice to come up with some numbers and stats once a halftime is finished and if they can do it for soccer – we can do it for poker! (And I too prefer to call it football, but rhyming and all)

Numbers and Stats

Let’s first do the numbers. Of these 33 events, with exclusion of the Event #1:

• 7 had a $1,000 buyin
• 12 staged a buy in of $1,500
• 2 events with $2,500 buy in
• 2 events with $3,000 buy in
• 1 event had a $5,000 buy in
• 7 were the ‘Championship’ Events with $10,000 buy in
• 1 had a $25,000 buyin

When all the prize pools of all these tournaments (including Event #1) would be combined into one huge prize pool, it would amount to $63,259,895. That is one big pile of money for sure! Total number of entries for all these events is 39,870 – many of them playing in numerous tournaments, of course, but still an admirable number.

The tournament that attracted the greatest number of players by far was the Event #8 – a popular Millionaire MakerTournament with one million guaranteed for the winner and buy in of only $1,500. 7,977 entries created the record prize pool for the first half - $10,768,950, and the winner of that one, Jonathan Dimmig, got to take home $1,319,587. Interestingly enough, second biggest field and the prize pool were created in the Event #17 – Seniors Championship, which gathered 4,425 players generating the prize pool of $3,982,500. The bracelet in that one went to Den Heimiller, who took home $627,462 for this win.

Smallest in terms of participants was the lucky Event #13 - $10k Deuce to Seven Championship, which attracted only 87 players, and so far it is the only tournament with under three-digits number of entries. In terms of prize pool, naturally the Event #1 (Casino Employees) with only $500 buy in was the smallest ($394,200), but the second smallest was Event #16 - $1,500 2-7 Triple Draw with $469,800. Winner still took home $124,000.

Facts and Trivia

Dominik Nitsche is the only one with two bracelets this summer, as he won WSOP National Championship and Event #21. This being his third bracelet overall, he has also become the youngest ever in possession of three WSOP bracelets, eclipsing Phil Hellmuth’s record.

Daniel Negreanuand Phil Ivey issued a bracelet prop bet at even odds before the start of the Series that one of them would win a bracelet this summer. That bet is still up in the air, as neither of them made it all the way. KidPoker came close, but was denied by Paul Volpe in 2-7 Draw Lowball Event.

Davidi Kitai and Dutch Boyd claimed their third bracelets.

Phil Hellmuth came close to winning his bracelet #14 but was stopped in heads-up by Ted Forrest, who added to his own collection of bracelets by winning Event #7 – Seven Card Razz. This was Forrest’s sixth bracelet overall.

Jonathan Dimmig is the only WSOP made millionaire thus far, as he took down the only event with seven-figure first place.

Joe Cada finally captured his second bracelet, ending the dry spell that’s been going on since his Main Event victory in ’09. Cada took down $10k 6-max championship, claiming $670,000 in the process.

There are still 15 seats up for grabs in the $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop tournament.