Nine to play Thursday for seat at Tournament of Champions
The World Series of Poker has set up a single-table “sudden-death playoff” tournament for nine players who were not eligible for public voting into its special Tournament of Champions event.
At noon Thursday at the Rio, poker professionals Tom Dwan, Andy Bloch, Bertrand Grospellier, Gus Hanson, Sorel Mizzi, Michael Mizrachi, Liv Boeree and Paul Wasicka, along with actor Don Cheadle, will play for one seat in the 27-seat free-roll tournament and a chance at the $1 million prize pool.
Mizrachi won this year’s initial event at the World Series of Poker, the $50,000 buy-in Poker Players Championship, which earned him the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy and almost $1.6 million.
The Tournament of Champions is being dubbed as the World Series of Poker’s All-Star event. The invitational will start on June 27 and the final nine will play on July 4.
The 27 players include 20 selected by public voting, five automatic entries and two sponsor-exemption entries. Thursday’s playoff is for one of the sponsor exemptions.
To be eligible for voting, players must be one of 521 World Series of Poker bracelet holders prior to the 2010 tournament. Voting began March 15 on www.wsop.com/toc and remains open through midnight June 15.
The five automatic entries were given to Annie Duke, Mike Matusow and Mike Sexton (the previous Tournament of Champions winners), Joe Cada (the 2009 World Series of Poker champion) and Barry Shulman (the 2009 World Series of Poker Europe champion).