Tournament of Champions

[Talking Poker]

2005 Tournament of Champions
Caesars Palace – Las Vegas
Official Report

Day One
No-Limit Hold’em
Number of Entries: 114
Total Prize Money: $2,000,000


End of Day One Standings:


Name Hometown Chips Table Seat
1 Phil Hellmuth Palo Alto, CA $110,900 1 3
2 Mike Matusow Las Vegas, NV $107,600 2 3
3 Hoyt Corkins Glenwood, AL $65,700 3 3
4 Lonnie Alexander Las Vegas, NV $58,600 3 7
5 Aaron Bartley Las Vegas, NV $53,200 2 7
6 Mike 'the Grinder' Mizrachi Hollywood, FL $46,700 1 7
7 Johnny Chan Cerritos, CA $46,500 1 9
8 Mark Hanna Cincinnati, OH $44,700 2 9
9 Neal Gersony Rocky Hill, CT $42,300 3 9
10 Chad Brown Los Angeles, CA $40,800 3 5
11 Yosh Nakano Long Beach, CA $39,700 2 5
12 Daniel Bergsdorf Umea, Sweden $38,900 1 5
13 Keith Sexton Dayton, OH $36,200 1 1
14 Stan Goldstein Cypress, CO $33,700 2 1
15 Brandon Adams New Orleans, LA $30,000 3 1
16 Steven Dannenmann Severn, MD $28,700 3 4
17 James Giordano Miami, FL $27,900 2 4
18 Jonathan Shecter Las Vegas, NV $27,700 1 4
19 Tony Ma S. El Monte, CA $27,200 1 8
20 Rene Angelil Henderson, NV $26,600 2 8
21 Doyle Brunson Las Vegas, NV $25,000 3 8
22 Imre Leibold Tallinn, Estonia $24,000 3 2
23 Tony Bloom London, England $22,900 2 2
24 David Levi Las Vegas, NV $22,800 1 2
25 Aaron Kanter Lodi, CA $22,700 1 6
26 Ted Lawson Fort Lauderdale, FL $21,300 2 6
27 Grant Lang Brookfield, CT $19,700 3 6
28 George Saca Folsom, CA $17,900 3 10
29 Salim Batshon Foster City, CA $16,300 2 10
30 Jeff Stanely Tucson, AZ $13,800 1 10



Hail Caesar!
Ceasars Palace Las Vegas Hosts the
2005 Tournament of Champions
After Day One, Phil Hellmuth is the chip leader,
Mike Matusow is close second

Caesar’s Palace has accommodated many epic events over the years. From Evel Knievel’s daredevil motorcycle jump over the imperial fountains back in 1968 to numerous heavyweight championship prizefights spanning four decades, Caesars Palace has long been associated with gargantuan sporting spectacles. Now, add poker to Caesar’s carte du jour.

For the first time since 1990, Caesars hosted a live poker tournament. Fifteen years after the last ‘Super Bowl of Poker’ concluded (historical footnote: T.J. Cloutier was the winner), tournament poker returned to Las Vegas’ most urbane palatial paradise. The 2005 Tournament of Champions (TOC) commenced at Caesars on Sunday, November 6th.

This year’s TOC foreshadows Caesars’ grand design to soar back into the poker business. On December 20th, Caesars will open Las Vegas’ largest poker room. Caesars new poker room will spread 63 tables – 33 specifically designated for tournaments and 30 for live action.

“For many years, Caesars was one of the biggest names in poker,” said Michael Matts – Caesars Palace Poker Room Manager. “Starting on December 20th, a new poker era will begin when we bring poker back to one of Las Vegas’ most legendary and luxurious casinos. Whether it’s recreational games, mid-limit poker, big-bet poker, or our ongoing tournaments, Caesars plans to set a new standard in excellence.”

This is the second year of the TOC. The annual no-limit hold’em qualifying tournament is a special $2 million freeroll. Invited players include all of the highest finishers at World Series of Poker Circuit events held during the previous year. From January-July 2005, six WSOP events were held – at Atlantic City, San Diego, Lake Tahoe, New Orleans, and two in Las Vegas. The top 20 players from each event qualified to play in this invitational tournament, competing for two million dollars in prize money. First place will pay $1 million.

With so much prize money and bragging rights for one of poker’s most prestigious titles at stake, many of poker’s biggest names converged inside the Caesars Augustus Ballroom. The starting field of 114 players included six current and former world poker champions – Joe Hachem (2005), Chris Ferguson (2000), Russ Hamilton (1994), Phil Hellmuth (1989), Johnny Chan (1987, 1988), and Doyle Brunson (1976, 1977). Several former WSOP gold bracelet winners entered, as well – including Joe Awada, T.J. Cloutier, Allen Cunningham, Antonio ‘the Magician’ Esfandiari, Scott Fischman, Jennifer Harmon, Phil Ivey, Howard ‘the Professor’ Lederer, Tony Ma, Mike ‘the Mouth’ Matusow, and Robert Williamson III.

Few of these big names made it past the first day. One of the first players to exit was defending WSOP champ, Joe Hachem, from Melbourne, Australia. Hachem flopped a set of threes, but lost to a flush. Many others would follow with similar bad beat stories. During the initial 13 hours, the TOC played down to 30 survivors. At the end of Day One, the chip leaders are familiar names to those who follow tournament poker and watch the WSOP in ESPN. Phil Hellmuth, Jr., the 1989 world champion, enjoys a slight chip lead over Mike Matusow and the rest of the field.

Hellmuth stunned the poker world 16 years ago when he won his title. He has since won a total of nine WSOP gold bracelets. Remarkably, all nine victories have been in hold’em events. In the last few years, Hellmuth has become a virtual corporation. He has written three poker books, endorsed popular video games, and commands speaking fees which rival former presidents and heads of state. But the TOC remains an elusive poker prize for Hellmuth. He finished a disappointing second-place at last year’s TOC, prompting a well-documented outburst on ESPN (Annie Duke was the winner).

Mike ‘the Mouth’ Matusow, who is unquestionably playing the best poker of his life at the moment, is second in chips – with 107,600. Former champions Doyle Brunson (with 25,000) and Johnny Chan (with 46,500) also remain in contention.

The past year has been a wild roller-coaster ride for Matusow, one of poker’s most combustible characters. Matusow is known just as much for his verbal tirades as his poker accomplishments. Whatever one thinks personally about Matusow and his behavior, there is no questioning his poker talent. Matusow has made it to two WSOP (main event) final tables over the past four years. Only one other player, Dan Harrington, has accomplished that. The next two days will determine if Mike Matusow achieve what would be a breakthrough victory and personal triumph. Although he won $1 million four months ago at the WSOP (finishing 9th), winning this tournament would solidify a special place in history for a player who was at rock bottom at the start of 2005.

With poker bad boys Hellmuth and Matusow setting the pace, this promises to be one of the most dramatic poker events of the year. Day Two (Monday) will eliminate another 21 aspiring millionaires. Then, the nine finalists will return on Day Three (Tuesday). Prize money will be divided, as follows:

1st Place -- $1,000,000
2nd Place – 325,000
3rd Place – 250,000
4th Place – 150,000
5th Place – 100,000
6th Place – 75,000
7th Place – 50,000
8th Place – 25,000
9th Place – 25,000

On Day Two -- play resumes at 12 noon PST.


Note: All content in this report may be re-printed by media.


Official Report by Nolan Dalla – World Series of Poker Media Director

Caesar’s Poker Room Manager – Michael Matts
Tournament Director – Robert Daily

[johnp158]

Day 2 results are up on Cardplayer. It's down to the Final Table. Hellmuth has a pretty good chiplead. Matusow is still in second too. Pretty crazy.

There also seems to be a lot of controversy in the poker world, because this was supposed to be a freeroll reserved for anyone who finished Top 20 in any WSOP circuit event last year as well as the people who final tabled the Main Event. This was supposed to be one of the perks of playing in the circuit events. But at the last minute, they invited, Phil, Johnny Chan, and Doyle to play. Several pros, like Daniel Negreanu (you can read his blog about it), were pretty pissed for the sake of all the players who earned their way into it. It really doesn't come off as a jealous rant either. Probably more of a comment on the state of poker promoters right now, who don't really care about the players and only care about the bottom line.

Not to say that this won't make amazing television with Phil and Mike at the final table.

[eddo31]

tp

you have anything to say about the way that harrahs/espn added hellmuth, doyle and chan to the tourney after they set the qualification rules, and none of those guys qualified?

seems pretty bunk to me. i dont have a problem with it if they actually said somewhere in the rules that they were going to add a few stars to bump up the tourney appeal for tv, but it doesnt seem like that is the case.

negreanu said some stuff about this on his blog, and he made some good points, but he is getting flamed at other places for his views.

just curious what you might have to say about this, as you have at least played in world series events and this could be something that is a bigger problem in the future.

[Reel Deal]

What's the url for his blog?

[Talking Poker]

I haven't read what Daniel wrote yet (at fullcontactpoker.com I assume), but I probably agree with him. As eddo said, if the original plan was to invite a bunch of superstars, but also allow a number of other players qualify from the circuit events, then great, that's fine. But I highly doubt thaty was the plan, or else there would be a lot more superstars in the field. If the plan was to invite EVERY Main Event Bracelet winner ever, in addition to this year's qualifiers, again, I'm fine with that. But I don't think they did that either, and I think it sucks that they are giving those few guys special treatment. Yes, two of them have won multiple Main Event Bracelets and 10 total (each), but how does Phil get in and not other worthy players?

Overall, I don't like it. Invite none or invite them all (Main Event Winners is how I would do it), but don't randomly pick just a few.

[Talking Poker]

Daniel's Blog:

[PShabi]

Somebody cut and paste the bit about the TOC exemptions. I can't access the blog at work.

[johnp158]

Of course there had to be an ugly greedy story behind it.



A national Pepsi marketing campaign? Wow.

[Talking Poker]

Very interesting. The thing is, there would have been such a happy solution here. Harrahs was willing to shell out $2 million for this. When Pepsi offered to cought up the dough and demanded their "exceptions," Harrahs should have told them they needed to cought up $2.5 million. If Pepsi balked at the idea, Harrahs could have chipped in a half a mil from their own pocket (still saving themselves $1.5 million) and everyone would be happy.

3 new players. $500,000 more. I don't think a single qualifier would complain, and everyone would be happy.

[PShabi]

Go Phil

[johnp158]

Really? Come on? He's so pretentious. At least Matusow is joking when he talks about being so much better than everybody else. He knows as well as everybody else just how fucked up he is.

And if ya'll aren't reading the Cardplayer updates, you should be. It's hilarious, and this is gonna make for great tv.

P.S. How can anybody pull for Phil when he shouldn't have ever been there?

[Talking Poker]

Hard as it is to admit, I'm rooting for the Mouth. He's a much better poker player than people give him credit for...