Top News – WSOP Tournament of Champions 27 and The Nuts

Everyone in poker world is now all over the WSOP and we at OnlinePoker10 are no exception. This week we have some news on The World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions and an inside look at the most viewed WSOP heads-up battle so far. Top10's of all the events are also here as well as another ten – ESPN Poker's “The Nuts” – monthly Top10 of the world's bets poker players produced by the most reputable poker editors, writers and observers.

WSOP Tournament of Champions is Set

The World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions – an event that gathers 27 elite poker players to play the $1 Million freeroll is set and all the participants have been announced. The first five seats went to three previous TOC winners – Annie Duke, Mike Matusow, and Mike Sexton, last year's WSOP winner Joe Cada and Barry Shulman. The other 20 players were for the first time selected by the public vote. All poker fans had the chance to pick their favorite players on the official WSOP website from March 15 and finally the voting results have been announced.

As many as 350,000 fans have voted for the candidates and the final list of 20 players selected by the public is the following:

1. Phil Ivey - 16,267
2. Daniel Negreanu - 16,239
3. Doyle Brunson - 13,796
4. Phil Hellmuth - 12,673
5. Chris Ferguson - 11,585
6. Allen Cunninghan - 10,486
7. Johnny Chan - 10,434
8. Scotty Nguyen - 9,834
9. Barry Greenstein - 9,806
10. John Juanda - 8,835
11. Erik Seidel - 8,802
12. Jennifer Harman - 8,206
13. Huck Seed - 8,180
14. Dan Harrington - 7,342
15. T.J. Cloutier - 6,281
16. Sammy Farha - 6,085
17. Howard Lederer - 5,596
18. Greg Raymer - 5,404
19. Joe Hachem - 5,272
20. Antonio Esfandiari – 5,129

“We’re very pleased with the response to this new format,” Ty Stewart, WSOP vice president said. “The selections show that poker has a mass fan base that is knowledgeable about the history of the World Series of Poker.”

The last two players were to be selected by the tournament sponsors. One of the two seats went exclusively to the U.K. resident which was Andrew Barton and the other was decided in a sudden-death sit-n-go tournament hosted by the WSOP Academy.

Nine players went into the battle for the last spot at the TOC tables including Gus Hansen, Sorel Mizzi, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Andy Bloch, Liv Boeree, Don Cheadle, Paul Wasicka and Gavin Smith who took Tom Dwan's place. As the game went heads up it was down to Grospellier and Mizrachi. At the end “ElkY” had beaten “The Grinder” with against Ah on a board.

“I want to thank the WSOP Academy for giving me the chance to win my way into the TOC,” said Grospellier after the game. “I feel like I am a deserving champion based on my record around the world, and I look forward to getting my WSOP bracelet soon.”

So all the 27 players are ready for the WSOP Tournament of Champions which will start at 12 p.m. on June 27 and will play until the final table on June 28. The final table will be played on July 4 and then broadcaster by ESPN at 8 p.m. EST, on August 3.

Dwan's Missed

The most discussed event in this year's WSOP is not the one about some player winning their bracelet, but about the one who didn't. That's right – we're talking about Tom Dwan and his heads-up loss to New Zealand's Simon Watt at the Event #11: $1,500 No Limit Hold'em final table. Dwan was the chip leader and looked in good shape for his first-ever WSOP bracelet, but too much bluffin' and too brave the opponent did not let durrrr come out victorious.

The event's top-spot cash prize was $614,248 (Dwan got $381,885 for the 2nd place) – the big blind in Tom's nose-bleed games on Full Tilt, so the prize money was no issue here. The bracelet – that's more like it. One of the world's best poker players without a WSOP bracelet seems like a big misunderstanding and everyone believes that it's just a matter of time for Dwan to win one. However, it was not Dwan's time yet.

But the most important reason why everyone was so excited about the game which gathered as many spectators as the Main Event final table was the bracelet bets. In one of his interviews durrrr said that if he won Event #11, the obscene amount of money he would rake in would be his biggest single-day win ever. Some say it was around $9 Million. You could see Mike Matusow, Howard Lederer and Phil Ivey along with a number of other pros in the crowd all waiting for the outcome of the game to know if their wallets became lighter or heavier.

In the last hand Dwon got and got all-in, Watt called, revealing pocket nines. The board went along with a big cheer from Watt's fans together with most of the top-class pros.

Here's the video on what was on their minds before the game:

Top10 Poker Pros – The Nuts

ESPN Poker have issued the monthly poker player Top10 – The Nuts. Two new players were added to the list - Daniel Alaei (returned) and Michael Mizrachi and two from last month's top10 not to make it into the list were Carlos Mortensen and Faraz Jaka. Mizrachi managed to get into The Nuts thanks to his win in the $50,000 Players' Championship and another WSOP final table, whereas Alaei returned because of his 7th place finish in the same WSOP Players' Championship and his six figure cashes in the last five tournaments.

The first four players on the list have kept their positions, however the battle for the second place between Tom Dwan and Jason Mercier gets more intense every time. durrrr has just missed his chance of winning his first WSOP bracelet by finishing second in Event #11: $1,500 No Limit Hold'em, but is still determined to win at least one this year. Mercier's performance in 2010 WSOP is not as strong as one would expect and if it doesn't improve, changes at the top of next month's table are very likely.

Some of the pros that are just on the doorstep of the Top10 are the current player of the year leader Vladimir Shchemelev, the man with four major tournament titles this year – Jose "Nacho" Barbero, Alexander Kostritsyn – the 10th-place finisher in the $50,000 Players' Championship, Phil Hellmuth and John Juanda all of whom are strong candidates for next month's The Nuts.

So here are the Top10 poker players of June 2010 (according to ESPN Poker):

Player (#1 votes)       Rank (last month)

Phil Ivey (8)                1 (1)
Jason Mercier (1)        2 (2)
Tom Dwan                  3 (3)
Eric Baldwin                4 (4)
Sorel Mizzi                  5 (9)
Patric Antonious         6 (5)
Daniel Negreanu        7 (6)
Scot Seiver (1)           8 (7)
Daniel Alaei                9 (NR)
Michael Mizrachi         10 (NR)

Find the full story and The Nuts list on ESPN Poker.

WSOP: 13 More Events

Another Week of the World Series of Poker is in the books and 13 more events have seen their winners. 25 of the WSOP events have been played so far, another 6 are underway at the moment which means that we're already half-way through. We at OnlinePoker10 just love Top10's and hope you love 'em too so we bring you top10 players of all the WSOP events that have taken place this week.

Event #13: $1,000 No Limit Holdem Tournament

1. Steven Gee – $472,479
2. Matthew Vance – $292,232
3. David Baker – $206,813
4. Nicholas Heather – $149,702
5. Jeffrey Gross – $109,621
6. Daniel Thomas – $81,203
7. Kyung Han – $60,833
8. Jared Hamby – $46,077
9. Mats Gavatin – $35,290
10. Daniel Duong – $27,323

Event #15: $10,000 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo World Championship

1. Frank Kassela – $447,446
2. Allen Kessler – $276,486
3. Jennifer Harman Traniello – $173,159
4. Steve Zolotow – $125,379
5. John Juanda – $97,989
6. Kirill Rabtsov – $78,142
7. Vladimir Schmelev – $63,457
8. Dario Minieri – $52,366
9. Gary Benson – $43,833
10. George Lind – $43,833

Event #16: $1,500 Six-Handed NLH

1. Carter Phillips – $482,774
2. Samuel Gerber – $298,726
3. Craig Bergeron – $189,661
4. Hugo Perez – $124,690
5. Russell Thomas – $84,256
6. David Diaz – $58,483
7. Thong Tran – $41,645
8. Mikhail Lakhitov – $41,645
9. Alexander Wilson – $30,420
10. Mark Flowers – $30,420

Event #17: $5,000 No Limit Holdem

1. Jason DeWitt – $818,959
2. Sam Trickett – $505,725
3. Jeff Williams – $328,762
4. Peter Gilmore – $241,472
5. Amit Makhija – $179,866
6. David Benefield – $135,718
7. James Carroll – $103,594
8. Paul Foltyn – $79,957
9. Manny Minaya – $62,350
10. Perry Friedman– $ 49,024

Event #18: $2,000 Limit Holdem

1. Eric Buchman – $203,607
2. Brent Courson – $125,737
3. Steven Hustoft – $90,928
4. Flavio Ferrari – $66,446
5. Hansu Chu – $49,068
6. William Jensen – $36,619
7. Matt Grapenthien – $27,609
8. Gary Bogdanski – $21,025
9. Matthew Matros – $16,174
10. Daniel Quach – $12,561

Event #19: $10,000 Deuce to 7 Draw Lowball Championship

1. David Baker – $294,314
2. Eric Cloutier – $181,886
3. George Danzer – $115,295
4. John Juanda – $78,088
5. Doug Booth – $55,483
6. Erik Seidel – $41,270
7. Eric Kesselman – $32,080
8. Daniel Negreanu – $26,004
9. Andy Bloch – $22,387
10. John Monnette – $22,387

Event #20: $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha

1. John Barch – $256,919
2. Klinghammer Thibaut – $158,698
3. Trai Dang – $102,306
4. Nenad Medic – $74,946
5. Ashkan Razavi – $55,711
6. Chris Hyong Chang – $41,971
7. Blair Rodman – $32,007
8. Tyler Patterson – $24,695
9. Denton Pfister – $19,259
10. Peter Costa – $15,197

Event #21: $1,500 Seven Card Stud

1. Richard Ashby – $140,467
2. Christine Pietsch – $86,756
3. Darren Shebell – $55,955
4. Dan Heimiller – $40,544
5. Owais Ahmed – $29,809
6. Sorel Mizzi – $22,235
7. Pat Pezzin – $16,826
8. Jon Turner – $12,916
9. Alex Kravchenko – $10,057
10. Raymond Walter – $10,057

Event #22: $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship

1. Vanessa Hellebuyck – $192,132
2. Sidsel Boesen – $118,897
3. Timmi Derosa – $74,389
4. Allison Whalen – $53,994
5. Kami Chisholm – $39,860
6. Holly Hodge – $29,880
7. La Sengphet – $22,728
8. Bonnie Overfield – $17,520
9. Loren Watterworth – $13,688
10. Ronit Chamani – $10,833

Event #23: $2,500 Limit Holdem Six-Handed

1. Dutch Boyd – $234,065
2. Brian Meinders – $144,650
3. Albert Minnullin – $93,892
4. Art Parmann – $62,769
5. Domenico Denotaristefani – $43,117
6. Al Barbieri – $30,399
7. JJ Liu – $21,991
8. Anh Le – $21,991
9. Jeff Norman – $16,303
10. Christopher Vitch – $16,303

Event #24: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em

1. Jeffrey Tebben – $503,389
2. J.D. McNamara – $310,248
3. Kiet Tran – $223,665
4. Denis Murphy – $162,568
5. David Cai – $119,410
6. Blake Kelso – $88,654
7. David Tolbert – $66,513
8. Greg Pohler – $50,410
9. Michael Gross – $38,629
10. Alexis Belanger Lebel – $29,897

Event #25 $10,000 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better Championship

1. Sammy Farha – $488,237
2. James Dempsey – $301,790
3. Yueqi Zhu – $225,326
4. Sergey Altbregin – $169,368
5. Tony Merksick – $128,097
6. Michael Chow – $97,508
7. Eugene Katchalov – $74,670
8. Abe Mosseri – $57,552
9. Steve Wong – $44,619
10. Mike Sexton – $34,814

Event #27: $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low-8 or Better

1. David Warga – $208,682
2. Maxwell Troy – $129,253
3. David Levi – $87,400
4. Karina Jett – $60,588
5. Christopher George – $42,913
6. Jonathan Bascom – $31,046
7. Chris Tryba – $22,926
8. Allen Bari – $17,274
9. Topias Wahlbeck – $13,275
10. Michael Foti – $13,275

The winners and top10 finishers of all the previous WSOP events can be found in the previous two Top News editions: Top News – Welcome to WSOP and Top News – More WSOP and Some UIGEA.

And that's it for today. Be sure to visit OnlinePoker10 next week for more Top News.

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