It’s been 38 days since the 45th Annual World Series of Poker kicked off with Event #1, the Casino Employees No Limit Holdem Event. Today, all 64 events leading up to the Main Event have kicked off, and all but 4 have finished. With 60 bracelets already decided, we recap what’s been happening and who’s been making the biggest shakes on the WSOP circuit this year.
The figures for the WSOP 2014, excluding the Main Event obviously, are standing at 75,656 entrants creating a prize pool of over $164 million. Last year’s figures showed 79,471 with a prize pool of over $197 million. The Main Event accounted for over 6,300 of those numbers and with the numbers expected to exceed those of last year, we should see the total prize pool for 2014 surpass a staggering $225 million.
Last year’s Main Event Winner, Ryan Reiss, pocketed a cool $8.3m but this year’s Main Event will see $10m guaranteed for the winner. But that still pales in significance to the $12m won by Jamie Gold in the 2006 Main Event. Winning the big one and scooping a bucketload of cash doesn’t always guarantee success though. Like many previous Main Event champions, Reiss has struggled to follow up his win with anything significant, or anything at all at that matter. He has only added 5 cashes to his Hendon Mob, 3 of which have come as this years’s WSOP. Total cashes of $9,200 on $4,000 worth of WSOP entry fees isn’t going to send shivers down any players though, so Reiss won’t be anyone to fear at this year’s Main Event. In fact, there has only been 13 cashes in total this year from players that made the final table last year, with JC Tran being the form horse of the lot, with 4 cashes including a couple of 4th places.
The Big One for One Drop
Since our last update, one anticipated event that has taken place was the $1,000,000 The Big One for One Drop. The One Drop Foundation is the brainchild of Cirque De Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, set up to help fight poverty and make water accessible to those that are deprived of it. The 42 entrants into the One Drop event amassed over $4.5m for charity, leaving over $37m to play for it, with $15m up for grabs for the winner. When the dust settled, it was 23 year old online professional Daniel Colman that walked away with the massive purse, beating the magnanimous Daniel Negreanu heads-up. The latter collecting over $8m for his troubles.
Daniel became the 2nd person behind Brandon Shack-Harris to end up on the receiving end of two heads-up losses. It was Negreanu’s 9th cash of the series though, putting him level with Brenes and Linde on the most cashes leaderboard, with just the Main Event to go. The odds are stacked against the likeable Canadian picking up the honours in the Main, but he did win a huge bet after Phil Ivey secured his 10th bracelet in Event $50 $1500 8-game mix. Daniel offered anyone that would listen odds of Even money that either himself or Ivey would win a bracelet this year. Ivey collected $166k for the win, but it’s thought that Negreanu’s winnings from the side bet was a lot more than that!
So tomorrow, 5th July sees the climax to this season’s WSOP, as players embark on a 10 day grind to try and reach the final table which will be played live on November 10th. Anyone that makes it, thoroughly deserves to be there, and I’m rooting for Ivey, Negreanu, Hellmuth and more of the old school of players to put it up to the internet young guns and make the business end of the biggest minefield live tournament of the year!
