2011 World Series of Poker
The 2011 World Series of Poker was the 42nd annual World Series of Poker. The WSOP is the most prestigious poker tournament in the world with the winner of the Main Event considered to be the World Champion, it was held at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada between May 31 – July 19, 2011. There were 59 bracelet events, beginning with the WSOP National Circuit Championship and culminating in the $10,000 No Limit Hold'em Championship; the November Nine concept returned for a fourth consecutive year, with the Main Event finalists returning on November 6, playing down to three that evening and adjourning until November 8. The 2011 WSOP marked the first time; because of the nature of the competition, live coverage was not allowed by the Nevada Gaming Commission. WSOP.com streamed 55 gold bracelet events on a 5-minute delay via the internet. ESPN3 streamed $50K Poker Players Championship and the Main Event online. ESPN doubled the airtime given to the WSOP from prior years. For the first time television coverage of the WSOP Main Event was "live" with a 30-minute delay.
The final table of the Main Event was televised in its entirety on ESPN. As per Nevada Gaming Commission stipulations, play was broadcast with a 15-minute delay and the hole cards were not shown to the television audience until after the hand was over. Since 1970, the WSOP was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. In 2004, Harrah's Entertainment purchased the rights to the WSOP and immediately started to expand the name brand. After the purchase, Harrah's introduced Circuit Events around the country; these events were intended to build up hype for the WSOP. In 2011, they introduced WSOP Circuit National Championship; the WSOP Circuit National Championship was an exclusive tournament, limited to 100 players who qualified through the circuit events. The winner of the championship was awarded a WSOP bracelet; the event, which took place from May 27 through May 29, was won by amateur player Sam Barnhart. Through the first 57 events, the 2011 WSOP: awarded $127,468,010 in prize money. Had 68,807 tournament entries.
Had 98 countries represented. Had representation from all 50 U. S. states. Had a male participation percentage of 94.7%. Had one multiple bracelet winner; the Main Event: had 6,865 entrants. Had 85 countries represented. Had representation from all 50 U. S. states. Had a male participation percentage of 96.5%. Had 4,604 participants from the U. S. had 2,265 participants from other countries. The $10,000 No Limit Hold. After reaching the final table of nine players on July 19, the remainder of the tournament was delayed until November 6; the Main Event drew 6,865 players, creating a prize pool of $64,531,000. The top 693 finishers placed in the money, with first place paying $8,715,638; the Main Event was won by Pius Heinz. There were 301 hands played at the final table, including 119 hands of heads-up play, the most in WSOP Main Event history. Several celebrities participated in the Main Event: Day 1-A: Jason Alexander, Vincent Van Patten Day 1-B: Sam Simon, Patrick Bruel Day 1-C: Paul Pierce, Brad Garrett, Petter Northug, Audley Harrison, Shane Warne, Ray Romano, Robert Iler Day 1-D: Jennifer Tilly, Shannon Elizabeth, René Angélil, Mars Callahan, Colson WhiteheadOf these celebrities, Sam Simon, Robert Iler and Mars Callahan finished in the money.
* Indicates a player who finished in the money. NB: This list is restricted to top 30 finishers with an existing Wikipedia entry. *Career statistics prior to the beginning of the 2011 Main Event
Berry Johnston
Berry Enfield Johnston is an American professional poker player. He is best known as the 1986 World Champion, but he has won four other bracelets at the World Series of Poker in addition to cashes and wins in many other tournaments throughout his career. Johnston won the 1986 World Series of Poker Main Event, placed third in 1983 and 1985 and fifth in the 1990 World Series, respectively, he has made at least 29 final tables at the WSOP and has finished in the money on at least 66 occasions. He has cashed ten times in the WSOP Main Event, more than any other player, his most recent cash in the Main Event came in 2007, when he finished in 113th place in a field of over six thousand players, for which Johnston won $58,570. Having cashed in at least one event every year from 1982–2010, Johnston holds the record at the WSOP for longest cashing streak at 29 years. Johnston cashed three times in the 2008 World Series of Poker, including tenth place in an Omaha Hi/Lo event, he is 42nd on the WSOP all time money list.
He is currently ranked in fourth place for the WSOP all-time cashes list with 57 cashes as of the end of the 2009 series. Johnston is still competing at high levels of poker today. Johnston has played on the NBC Poker After Dark Series, most in 2008 among some of his fellow World Series of Poker Main Event Champions. Berry finished fourth in the tournament, won by Johnny Chan; the other world champions in the tournament were Phil Hellmuth, Huck Seed, Chris Ferguson, Jamie Gold. He was inducted into the Seniors Poker Hall of Fame in the early 1990s and Poker Hall of Fame in 2004. Johnston was the only inductee in the 2004 class; as of 2010, his total live tournament winnings exceed $3,450,000. His 60 cashes as the WSOP account for $2,075,527 of those winnings. Official site pokernews.com – Legends of Poker: Berry Johnston
PokerStars
PokerStars is an online poker cardroom owned by The Stars Group. It can be accessed through downloadable poker clients for the Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. A PokerStars.com online satellite tournament produced the 2003 World Series of Poker champion, Chris Moneymaker. As the first person to become a world champion by qualifying at an online poker site, Moneymaker's 2003 win was an important factor in catalyzing the poker boom of the mid-2000s; the press has called this the "Moneymaker effect."PokerStars is the largest real money online poker site in the world, controlling over two-thirds of the total online poker market. PokerStars launched its beta play-money-only site on September 11, 2001; the company began offering real money wagering on December 12, 2001. PokerStars was a Costa Rican company, Rational Enterprises, majority owned by the Israeli Scheinberg family; the company was subsequently moved to Isle of Man. The move was driven by the establishment of a 0% corporate tax rate and the removal of rules barring companies from accepting casino and poker bets from the United States of America.
PokerStars holds its licence with the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission and holds numerous licences in other jurisdictions. On February 10, 2012, PokerStars acquired a European Union license granted by the Malta Lotteries and Gaming Commission. While owned, PokerStars had been the subject of financial media speculation regarding a possible initial public offering or merger with a publicly listed company. Analysts estimated its market value would have been $2 billion in 2006, which would have made the company one of the world's largest held gambling companies. PokerStars overtook PartyPoker as the world's largest online poker room at after the U. S. Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. Many sites, including PartyPoker suspended business with U. S. gamblers, while others, including PokerStars, did not. On December 27, 2009, PokerStars set the world record for the biggest online tournament; the tournament entry fee was $1, the number of entrants reached 149,196.
They broke that record on December 4, 2011, when 200,000 players played in a $1 buy-in tournament with a first prize of $50,000. PokerStars was so busy during the early stages of the tournament, all tournaments had to be stopped for 20 minutes because the heavy traffic crashed their servers; this record had been broken again at June 2013, with 225,000 participants. The buy-in was $1 and went into the prize pool, with no rake. In January 2012, PokerStars introduced a downloadable mobile client for iOS from iTunes. In February 2012, the company introduced a client for Android. On July 31, 2012, PokerStars bought Full Tilt Poker; the $731 million deal settled a civil lawsuit with the Department of Justice while giving ownership of Full Tilt Poker's assets to PokerStars. On June 12, 2014, The Stars Group known as Amaya Inc. agreed to buy PokerStars and its parent company for $4.9 billion in cash. The deal was completed on August 1, 2014; as of April 6, 2016 they have reached an agreement with Netent to add desktop and mobile gambling games to its poker lobby in New Jersey and other locations.
In February 2017, Microgaming announced a partnership with PokerStars, owned by parent company for the integration of its Quickfire platform. In July 2017, PokerStars agreed to a deal with bankruptcy administrators to acquire some of rival PKR.com's assets and in doing so will reimburse 60,000 PKR players 100% of their final balances. In December 2017, PokerStars unveiled a brand new player tournament called the PokerStars Players No Limit Hold'em Championship, to be held in January 2019; the tournament is expected to become one of the biggest events in the annual poker calendar with a twenty-five thousand dollar buy in and a $1 million bonus for the eventual winner. In March 2018, The Stars Group reached an agreement with gaming company Sugal & Damani to support the launch of its PokerStars brand in India. In September 2018, PokerStars revealed PokerStars VR, a immersive virtual reality poker experience. PokerStars offers a large number of poker variations: Texas hold'em, Omaha Hi/Lo, Stud, Stud Hi/Lo, Five-card draw, 2-7 Triple Draw & 2-7 Single Draw, Badugi, HORSE, HOSE, Mixed Hold'em, Mixed Omaha Hi/Lo, Triple Stud and 8-Game Mix.
PokerStars offers "Mixed Games," which rotate through several of these games. PokerStars averages over 15,000 players playing real money cash games daily. PokerStars launched Zoom Poker in March 2012, with an official launch in May 2012. Zoom Poker is a fast fold ring game poker format; the aim of Zoom poker is to offer players more hands of poker than in a regular ring game. In January 2013 PokerStars rolled out Zoom Poker Tournaments due to popular demand for the fast fold variant The site's weekly Sunday Million tournament has a guaranteed $1 million prize pool and a $215 buy-in; the Sunday Million is the biggest weekly online poker tournament. On March 7, 2011, The 5th Anniversary Sunday Million broke records, with 59,128 players creating a total prize pool of $11,825,600. World Championship of Online Poker has been running since 2002 and is regarded as the online equivalent of the World Series of Poker; the WCOOP tournament series is the largest online poker series and pays out the largest prizes in online poker.
The WCOOP 2010 Main Event champion Tyson “POTTERPOKER” Marks won $2.2 Million, the largest online tournament prize in history. Spring Championship of Online Poker was established in 2009 and has since become the most popular online tournament series. Unlike WCOOP, there are t
Video game
A video game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface to generate visual feedback on a two- or three-dimensional video display device such as a TV screen, virtual reality headset or computer monitor. Since the 1980s, video games have become an important part of the entertainment industry, whether they are a form of art is a matter of dispute; the electronic systems used to play video games are called platforms. Video games are developed and released for one or several platforms and may not be available on others. Specialized platforms such as arcade games, which present the game in a large coin-operated chassis, were common in the 1980s in video arcades, but declined in popularity as other, more affordable platforms became available; these include dedicated devices such as video game consoles, as well as general-purpose computers like a laptop, desktop or handheld computing devices. The input device used for games, the game controller, varies across platforms. Common controllers include gamepads, mouse devices, the touchscreens of mobile devices, or a person's body, using a Kinect sensor.
Players view the game on a display device such as a television or computer monitor or sometimes on virtual reality head-mounted display goggles. There are game sound effects and voice actor lines which come from loudspeakers or headphones; some games in the 2000s include haptic, vibration-creating effects, force feedback peripherals and virtual reality headsets. In the 2010s, the commercial importance of the video game industry is increasing; the emerging Asian markets and mobile games on smartphones in particular are driving the growth of the industry. As of 2015, video games generated sales of US$74 billion annually worldwide, were the third-largest segment in the U. S. entertainment market, behind broadcast and cable TV. Early games used interactive electronic devices with various display formats; the earliest example is from 1947—a "Cathode ray tube Amusement Device" was filed for a patent on 25 January 1947, by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, issued on 14 December 1948, as U. S.
Patent 2455992. Inspired by radar display technology, it consisted of an analog device that allowed a user to control a vector-drawn dot on the screen to simulate a missile being fired at targets, which were drawings fixed to the screen. Other early examples include: The Nimrod computer at the 1951 Festival of Britain; each game used different means of display: NIMROD used a panel of lights to play the game of Nim, OXO used a graphical display to play tic-tac-toe Tennis for Two used an oscilloscope to display a side view of a tennis court, Spacewar! used the DEC PDP-1's vector display to have two spaceships battle each other. In 1971, Computer Space, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was the first commercially sold, coin-operated video game, it used a black-and-white television for its display, the computer system was made of 74 series TTL chips. The game was featured in the 1973 science fiction film Soylent Green. Computer Space was followed in 1972 by the first home console. Modeled after a late 1960s prototype console developed by Ralph H. Baer called the "Brown Box", it used a standard television.
These were followed by two versions of Atari's Pong. The commercial success of Pong led numerous other companies to develop Pong clones and their own systems, spawning the video game industry. A flood of Pong clones led to the video game crash of 1977, which came to an end with the mainstream success of Taito's 1978 shooter game Space Invaders, marking the beginning of the golden age of arcade video games and inspiring dozens of manufacturers to enter the market; the game inspired arcade machines to become prevalent in mainstream locations such as shopping malls, traditional storefronts and convenience stores. The game became the subject of numerous articles and stories on television and in newspapers and magazines, establishing video gaming as a growing mainstream hobby. Space Invaders was soon licensed for the Atari VCS, becoming the first "killer app" and quadrupling the console's sales; this helped Atari recover from their earlier losses, in turn the Atari VCS revived the home video game market during the second generation of consoles, up until the North American video game crash of 1983.
The home video game industry was revitalized shortly afterwards by the widespread success of the Nintendo Entertainment System, which marked a shift in the dominance of the video game industry from the United States to Japan during the third generation of consoles. A number of video game developers emerged in Britain in the early 1980s; the term "platform" refers to the specific combination of electronic components or computer hardware which, in conjunction with software, allows a video game to operate. The term "system" is commonly used; the distinctions below are not always clear and there may be games that bridge one or more platforms. In addition to laptop/desktop computers and mobile devices, there are other devices which have the ability to play games but are not video game machines, such as PDAs and graphing calculators. In common use a "PC game" refers to a form of media that involves a player interacting with a personal computer conne
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. No recent population census has been conducted, but 2007 estimates ranged from more than 1 million to 2.2 million as part of Greater Beirut. Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coast, Beirut is the country's largest and main seaport, it is one of the oldest cities in the world. The first historical mention of Beirut is found in the Amarna letters from the New Kingdom of Egypt, which date to the 15th century BC. Beirut is Lebanon's seat of government and plays a central role in the Lebanese economy, with most banks and corporations based in its Central District, Rue Verdun, Ryad el Soloh street, Achrafieh. Following the destructive Lebanese Civil War, Beirut's cultural landscape underwent major reconstruction. Identified and graded for accountancy, banking/finance and law, Beirut is ranked as a Beta World City by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network; the English name Beirut is an early transcription of the Arabic name Bayrūt.
The same name's transcription into French is Beyrouth, sometimes used during Lebanon's French occupation. The Arabic name derives from Phoenician Birut; this was a modification of the Canaanite and Phoenician word be'rot, meaning "the wells", in reference to the site's accessible water table. The etymology is shared by the biblical Beeroth which was, however, a different settlement somewhere near Jerusalem; the name is first attested in the 15th century BC, when it was mentioned in three Akkadian cuneiform tablets of the Amarna letters, letters sent by King Ammunira of "Biruta" to Amenhotep III or Amenhotep IV of Egypt. "Biruta" was mentioned in the Amarna letters from King Rib-Hadda of Byblos. The Greeks hellenized the name as Bērytós; when it attained the status of a Roman colony, it was notionally refounded and its official name was emended to Colonia Iulia Augusta Felix Berytus to include its imperial sponsors. Before, under the Seleucid Empire, the city had been refounded and known as Laodicea in honor of the mother of Seleucus the Great.
It was distinguished from several other places named in her honor by the longer names Laodicea in Phoenicia or Laodicea in Canaan. Beirut was settled more than 5,000 years ago and the area had been inhabited for far longer. Several prehistoric archaeological sites have been discovered within the urban area of Beirut, revealing flint tools of sequential periods dating from the Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic through the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. Beirut I was listed as "the town of Beirut" by Louis Burkhalter and said to be on the beach near the Orient and Bassoul hotels on the Avenue des Français in central Beirut; the site was discovered by Lortet in 1894 and discussed by Godefroy Zumoffen in 1900. The flint industry from the site was described as Mousterian and is held by the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon. Beirut II was suggested by Burkhalter to have been south of Tarik el Jedideh, where P. E. Gigues discovered a Copper Age flint industry at around 100 metres above sea level; the site had been built on and destroyed by 1948.
Beirut III, listed as Plateau Tabet, was suggested to have been located on the left bank of the Beirut River. Burkhalter suggested that it was west of the Damascus road, although this determination has been criticized by Lorraine Copeland. P. E. Gigues discovered a series of Neolithic flint tools on the surface along with the remains of a structure suggested to be a hut circle. Auguste Bergy discussed polished axes that were found at this site, which has now disappeared as a result of construction and urbanization of the area. Beirut IV was on the left bank of the river and on either side of the road leading eastwards from the Furn esh Shebbak police station towards the river that marked the city limits; the area was covered in red sand. The site was found by Jesuit Father Dillenseger and published by fellow Jesuits Godefroy Zumoffen, Raoul Describes and Auguste Bergy. Collections from the site were made by Bergy and another Jesuit, Paul Bovier-Lapierre. A large number of Middle Paleolithic flint tools were found on the surface and in side gullies that drain into the river.
They included around 50 varied bifaces accredited to the Acheulean period, some with a lustrous sheen, now held at the Museum of Lebanese Prehistory. Henri Fleisch found an Emireh point amongst material from the site, which has now disappeared beneath buildings. Beirut V was discovered by Dillenseger and said to be in an orchard of mulberry trees on the left bank of the river, near the river mouth, to be close to the railway station and bridge to Tripoli. Levallois flints and bones and similar surface material were found amongst brecciated deposits; the area has now been built on. Beirut VI was a site discovered while building on the property of the Lebanese Evangelical School for Girls in the Patriarchate area of Beirut, it was notable for the discovery of a finely styled Canaanean blade javelin suggested to date to the early or middle Neolithic periods of Byblos and, held in the school library. Beirut VII, the Rivoli Cinema and Byblos Cinema sites near the Bourj in the Rue el Arz area, are two sites discovered by Lorraine Copeland and Peter Wescombe in 1964 and examined by Diana Kirkbride and Roger Saidah.
On
World Series of Poker bracelet
The World Series of Poker bracelet is considered the most coveted non-monetary prize a poker player can win. Since 1976, a bracelet has been awarded to the winner of every event at the annual WSOP. If the victory occurred before 1976, WSOP championships are now counted as "bracelets". During the first years of the WSOP only a handful of bracelets were awarded each year. In 1990, there were only 14 bracelet events. By 2000, that number increased to 24; as the popularity of poker has increased during the 2000s, the number of events has increased. In 2011, 58 bracelets were awarded at the WSOP, seven at the World Series of Poker Europe, one to the WSOP National Circuit Champion; this brought the total number of bracelets awarded up to 959. Five additional bracelets were awarded for the first time in April 2013 at the inaugural World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific in Melbourne, Australia.. In 2017, 74 for bracelets were awarded at the WSOP and an additional 11 will be awarded at the WSOPE in Czech Republic.
After the conclusion of the 2014 WSOP APAC, there have been 1083 bracelets awarded, 500 of which were won by 170 players who have won at least two bracelets, with all of the other bracelets being won by one-time winners. This includes 17 Main Event winners: Hal Fowler, Bill Smith, Mansour Matloubi, Brad Daugherty, Jim Bechtel, Russ Hamilton, Noel Furlong, Robert Varkonyi, Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Jamie Gold, Jerry Yang, Peter Eastgate, Pius Heinz, Ryan Riess and Martin Jacobson. Since Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 Main Event, only three players have won and followed it up with a win in another bracelet event, Jonathan Duhamel, Joe Cada and Joe McKeehen; the 1976 bracelet looked "like gold nuggets kind of hammered flat". The bracelet in 1976 cost $500. In the 1980s, Las Vegas jeweler Mordechai Yerushalmi became the exclusive manufacturer of WSOP bracelets until Harrah's Entertainment bought the rights to the WSOP in 2004. According to 2003 WSOP Champion Chris Moneymaker, the design of the bracelet remained unchanged under Yerushalmi.
In 2005, Gold and Diamond International based in Memphis, TN won the bid from Harrah's Entertainment to manufacture the 2005 World Series of Poker bracelets. The company manufactures the WSOP circuit rings. In 2006, Frederick Goldman, Inc. made the WSOP bracelets while luxury watch maker Corum introduced some commemorative watches as part of the prize package. In 2006, the Champion's bracelet had 259 stones including 7.2 carats of diamonds, 120 grams of white and yellow gold. It used rubies to represent the heart and diamond suits, a sapphire to represent the spade and three black diamonds to represent the clubs. In 2007, Corum became the official bracelet manufacturer for the WSOP; some of the 2007 World Series of Poker champions received both a bracelet from Corum. Corum designed four variations for the 2007 World Series of Poker Bracelets; the standard version, presented to 53 winners features 53 diamonds. The Ladies World Champion receives a bracelet, adorned with four black diamonds, two rubies and 87 blue sapphires.
The $50,000 HORSE Champion Bracelet has two rubies. The World Series of Poker Main Event Bracelet has 120 diamonds on 136 grams of 18 carat white gold; the value of the 2007 bracelets have not been released, but the typical price of a Corum watch ranges from $1,500–$30,000+. In 2008, the Main Event Bracelet had 291 diamonds, totalling 2.81 carats set in 168 grams of 18kt white gold. The other 54 event bracelets consisted of 55 diamonds, totalling 0.25 carats set in 80 grams of 14kt yellow gold. In 2010, an Australian-based company OnTilt Designs Pty Ltd won a multi-year contract to become the official bracelet manufacturer for the WSOP. OnTilt jewelers decided that the 2010 bracelet design would return to the tradition of the 1970s and 1980s where the bracelet was a heavy piece of unadorned metal. American jewelry designer Steve Soffa was chosen to design and manufacture the entire set of bracelets; the goal was to create a bracelet that somebody would want to wear every day. In 2011, OnTilt has been chosen to manufacture the WSOP Circuit rings.
In 2012, Jason Arasheben, famed jewelry designer and owner of Jason of Beverly Hills was chosen as the official bracelet manufacturer of the WSOP. Arasheben had designed the championship rings for the 2009 and 2010 Los Angeles Lakers and the 2011 Green Bay Packers, among others; the Main Event bracelet will feature each suit in the deck in black diamonds. In terms of sheer mass, it weighs in at over 160 grams of 14 karat gold and over 35 carats of flawless diamonds. A special platinum bracelet was awarded at the 2012 WSOP to the winner of The Big One for One Drop, Antonio Esfandiari; the event was a $1 million buy-in tournament created as a fundraiser for the One Drop Foundation, a charity established by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté. At first, the bracelets did not have much prestige. Ten-time bracelet winner Doyle Brunson said that his first bracelet "didn't mean anything" to him and that he did not pick up two of them; some professional poker players believe. Those who have belong to an exclusive club.
"It's impossible to overstate the value of a World Series of Poker gold bracelet to anyone who takes the game seriously," stated World Series of Poker Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack during the 2006 bracelet unveiling. "It is the equivalent of winning the Stanley Cup in hockey or the Lombardi Trophy in American football."Many professional poker players desire the recognition, associated with the bracelet. Former Celebrit
2010 World Series of Poker
The 2010 World Series of Poker was the 41st annual World Series of Poker, held at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Paradise and ran from May 28 to July 17. There were 57 bracelet events, culminating in the $10,000 No Limit Hold'em Championship that began on July 5; the November Nine concept returned for the third year, with the Main Event finalists returning on November 6. A notable change from 2009 was the revamping of the $50,000 buy-in tournament. From its inception in 2006 through 2009, it had been a H. O. R. S. E. Event in which play rotated between Texas hold'em, Omaha 8-or-better, Razz and stud 8-or-better, all played with a limit betting structure. In 2010, it became an "8-game" tournament, rotating between the five H. O. R. S. E. Games followed by rounds of no-limit hold'em, pot-limit Omaha, limit 2–7 triple draw. Once the final table was reached, play switched to no-limit hold'em; the tournament, now known as The Poker Player's Championship, was moved to the second spot on the WSOP schedule, preceded only by the restricted $500 Casino Employees No Limit Hold'em event.
Thus, the 2010 WSOP open events started with The Poker Player's Championship and ended with the No Limit Hold'em Championship/Main Event. Several celebrities were in attendance, including Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Ray Romano. Robert and Michael Mizrachi's appearance at the final table of the $50,000 Player's Championship is only the third time in WSOP history that two siblings faced each other at the final table of a WSOP event. In 1995, Howard Lederer and Annie Duke made the final table in a pot-limit Hold'em event and in 2002, Ross and Barny Boatman made it to the final table in a pot-limit Omaha event. While the event is called the "Ladies Championship," the WSOP cannot ban men from participating. In past years, a few men have played in the Ladies Championship, but in 2010 at least half a dozen and "some estimates on the floor are that the number of men who entered the event is in the double digits." WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky called the men "scumbags" and declared, “The good news is at the World Series of Poker, we have the right to refuse service to anyone at any time at any point that we deem, as operators of the event.”
Robert and Michael Mizrachi were part of another sibling milestone. They and their brothers Eric and Donny became the first set of four siblings to cash in the same Main Event. Eric finished in 718th place on Day 4, Donny finished in 345th place on Day 5 and Robert finished in 116th place on Day 6, while Michael made the final table and played for the title in November, when he finished fifth. Breeze Zuckerman won the 2010 Last Woman Standing Cup in the Main Event, finishing 121st and cashing for $57,201; the $10,000 No Limit Texas Hold'em Championship Main Event began on July 5 with the first of four starting days. Each of the participants at the 2010 WSOP Main Event received 30,000 in tournament chips for the $10,000 buy-in event. After reaching the final table of nine players on July 17, the final table was delayed until November 6; the total number of entrants in the 2010 Main Event was 7,319 with a prize pool of $68,798,600 with the winner receiving $8,944,138 for first place. The payout "bubble" was reached during Day 4 at 747 players, each of whom earned a minimum of $19,263.
The bubble finisher was Tim McDonald, a professional angler and recreational poker player from Lexington, Kentucky. Matt Affleck, with his 15th-place finish in this year’s championship combined with an 80th-place in 2009, outlasted 13,718 players in back-to-back years, the fourth-most in WSOP history; the Main Event was a draw for many celebrities to play including: Day 1-a: Ray Romano, David Alan Grier, Sara Jean Underwood, Petter Northug, René Angélil, Irving Lorenzo Day 1-b: Orel Hershiser Day 1-c: Scott Ian, Shanna Moakler, Anthony Rapp, Sully Erna, Gabe Kaplan, Alexia Portal, Shane Warne Day 1-d: Bruce Buffer, Shannon Elizabeth, Emmitt Smith, Audley Harrison, Hank Azaria, Jason Alexander, Trishelle Cannatella, Sam Simon, Jeff FenechOf these celebrities, Northug and Buffer made the money. NB: This list is restricted to top 30 finishers with an existing Wikipedia entry. *Career statistics prior to the beginning of the 2010 Main Event. American jewelry designer Steve Soffa was chosen by the World Series of Poker to design and manufacture the entire set of bracelets for the 2010 World Series of Poker
