Top News – Eastgate Quits, Hellmuth Makes an Entrance

So last week we brought you the last of the WSOP results with only the Main Event left, however, this edition of Top News will take a look at this year's WSOP as well. As OnlinePoker10 is so into who's the best at what, we went and looked at how 2010 WSOP was better than the one we had last year.

We also found Thomas Delatte's from Bleacher Report “The 20 Hottest Poker Babes That Could Win the WSOP” very fitting to the general atmosphere of the site as it had the two most important features required by OnlinePoker10 – it's a top and it's about poker. This week's braking news is the 2008 World Series of Poker Man Event champion Peter Eastgate's retirement form poker and Phil Hellmuth's epic WSOP Main Event entrance. So catch up with all the latest poker news here at OnlinePoker10.

Eastgate Sits-out

Last week Peter Eastgate, the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event champion, had officially announced that he quits poker. In his statement Peter said that it has never been his goal to spend all his life playing poker and that by winning the WSOP in 2008 he had achieved his real goal – to become financially independent.

Big players quitting the game is not something new in the poker world, even young ones, such as a 20 year-old Mike “Timex” McDonald from the CardRunners team who has recently announced that he's taking a break from poker and will try to find himself elsewhere. But a World Series of Poker champion retiring at 24, just 20 months after his big win, being at the very top oh his poker carrier – that's not very common.

“When I started playing poker for a living, it was never my goal to spend the rest of my life as a professional poker player. My goal was to become financially independent. I achieved that by winning the WSOP Main Event in 2008. The period following has taken me on a worldwide tour, where I have seen some amazing places and met many new people; it has been a great experience. In the 20 months following my WSOP win, I feel that I have lost my motivation for playing high level poker along the way and I have decided that now is the time to find out what I want to do with the rest of my life. What this will be, I do not yet know. I have decided to take a break from live tournament poker, and try to focus on Peter Eastgate, the person. I want to thank PokerStars, my friends and family for their support over the last 20 months and for their support in my decision to take a break from poker.”

However, history tells us that most of young players who decide to quit the game tend to comeback after some time. Among such comebacks we should mention this year's NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event winner Vanessa Selbst who appeared at the tables after being away for two years and had even recently joined team PokerStars.

So will the Danish poker ambassador make his big return in a year or two, or will he leave the poker world forever? Only Peter himself is to decide.

Hellmuth Comes

Phil Hellmuth's appearance at the WSOP Main Event is a must-see event. This year the poker legend had made his Main Event entrance to remember for the fourth time in a row and although it might have been Uncle Sam, The Poker Brat decided to go with the MMA fighter outfit. Last year Hellmuth appeared at the Rio dressed up as Julius Caesar, the other two times it was a NASCAR driver and General Patton. And there's always beautiful women surrounding him as Phil makes his appearance, but this time they were dancing as well.

However, not all of the poker community is thrilled by the Hellmuth's show. In fact 99 out of 103 people agreed with Doyle Brunson's tweet saying: “I'm glad I'm not playing today so I won't see Hellmuth make a fool out of himself with his entrance. I can't help thinking it's terrible.” To which Phil replied: “I love Doyle Brunson...We go out drinking sometimes.…I called him up this morning. I said, 'C'mon Doyle, you and I, we're not the kind of people that make fun of other people.'… It was just a little strong.” Hellmuth also said he thinks such entrances are good for poker and that 70 percent of people who are into poker love it. Later on Brunson apologized for what he said, but still pointed out that most of his followers agreed with the thought.

If you haven't been there to see Hellmuth's big arrival, here's the video:

WSOP Money Counts

As the 2010 WSOP turns its last page with only one event left to play, the poker world got into numbers and started counting how much and how many. OnlinePoker10 like to think they're part of the poker world too so we've got some of the numbers as well.

A total of 65,647 players have played in 56 events so far and that is a 22 percent increase in comparison to 53,808 players from the last year. The 2010 Main Event has gathered 7,319 players which is almost a thousand more than in 2009 – 6,494. This year's prizepool is bigger by $7 million than it was last year - $68 million vs. $61 million in 2009 which means that this time the winner will take home more cash that Joe Cada who collected $8,546,435 along with his WSOP Main Event title. This year the winner will take home almost half a mill more – $8,944,138.

“We’re thrilled that poker enthusiasts from every corner of the globe have reinforced the WSOP’s standing as one of the most popular competitive events anywhere,” Ty Stewart, WSOP vice president said. “This year’s turnout continues to show the players’ passion for poker’s biggest stage. It's certainly the high water mark for the poker industry, but it's become more of a pop culture happening. I've heard it said that it's like a bucket list item (things to do before I die). It's a bucket list badge of honor. People say they want to run with the bulls in Pamplona and swim with the poker sharks in Vegas.”

Hot Top 20

So Bleacher Report have once again made a list of sexiest female poker players, but this time it's about the best-looking players with the chance of making it all the way in this year's WSOP Main Event title. And although some of the contenders have already busted from the race, they are still nice to look at.

The 20 Hottest Poker Babes that Could Win the WSOP is the name for the slide show of 20 most sexiest female players in this year's Main Event with short comments on their performance at the poker tables as well as how good they're looking. The names on the list include such poker babes as Jennifer Tilly, Lauren Kling, Liv Boeree, Chantel McNulty, Shannon Elizabeth, Tiffany Michelle, Vanessa Rousso and Jennifer Leigh at the top.

Check out the full list of the 20 hottest Main Event players at BleachReport.com

By the way, here's a video of the hottest 2010 WSOP Main Event title contender - Jennifer Leigh taking about her performance at the poker tables:



And that's just about all we wanted to share with you in this week's Top News. Be sure you visit us next time when we'll tell you all about the 2010 WSOP Main Event Final Table – The November Nine.

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