In approximately 6 weeks the winner of the Main Event will be determined. 2016 was an amazing year for the WSOP featuring mind blowing assistance and several records broken. Definitely the highlight of the Main Events final table is the current chipleader Cliff Jospehy aka Johnny Bax.
2016 WSOP Overview
The 2016 WSOP started, as usual, on May 31st with the $565 Casino Employees event. The event offered 69 bracelet events, the most until today and one of the major changes that took place on 2016 was the starting stack for $10,000 buy-in tournaments which is now 5 times the buy-in of the event.
The Colossus came back in 2016 with an impressive field of 21,613 players registered. With a $565 buy-in it didn´t surpass 2015 registrations of 22,374. The 2016 Colossus became the tournament with highest prize for first place ever on tournaments with a buy in of $1000 or less. After 6 days of pure poker action, Ben Keeline took down the event and the $1,000,000 guaranteed prize for first place.
One brand new tournament launched in 2016 was the $1,000 Top Up Turbo No Limit Hold’em. The tournament featured an unusual structure in which players were able to satellite for $55 and double their starting stack. Only 667 players registered to the event and the future of this event at the moment is unknown.
The $1,000 Tag Team No Limit Hold’em (Event #61) was the first team event at WSOP since 1983. The winners were Ryan Fee and Doug Polk for $153,358.
For the second time, WSOP awarded a bracelet on an online event. The $1000 buy in 1 day tournament was won by Clayton Maguire cashing $210,279. The event took place at the online poker room at www.wsop.com.
2016 WSOP Highlights
The first major happening took place at Event #3 $10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship. Robert Mizrachi won his 4th bracelet and $242,662. The Mizrachi family is well known in the poker world and Robert’s 4th bracelet puts him one ahead of his brother Michael who has had amazing results in the last years. This is the second bracelet Mizrachi has won in a $10,000 buy in event, the first one happened back in 2007 in the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha Championship.
Jason Mercier, member of team Pokerstars, took home his fourth bracelet at the $10,000 No Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship. With only 29 years old, Mercier’s poker resume is reason of envy for any major pro. He has cashed over $17 million in live tournament winnings and a few more in online tournament results. Mercier won his fourth bracelet by defeating Mike Watson, a huge professional online player known as SirWatts, depraving him of his first WSOP bracelet. This was not the last to be seen from Mercier at the 2016 WSOP. He surprised the poker community by winning the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E Championship, considered by many one of the most prestigious and skill demanding events at the WSOP. Nowadays is neither often to see or easy for a player to take home 2 bracelets at a WSOP event.
Other outstanding bracelet wins at the 2016 WSOP were those of George Danzer taking down the $10,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Split -8 or Better Championship. Danzer has won 4 bracelets in his career and also enjoys a profitable career in the online poker community. Brian Rast, who has won more than $17 million in live poker tournaments won his 3rd bracelet at the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship, event he won as well back in 2011. This event has only been won twice by the same player; one has been Rast, the other one Michael Mirzachi.
The online poker phenomenon Shaun Deeb won his second bracelet on 2016. Deeb has a remarkable online poker career and feared by other poker players due to his aggression and “mind reading” skills. He won the $1500 Seven Card Stud event and improves his resume as a skillful poker player at all disciplines. He mostly enjoys playing No limit Hold’em and has had success at the online omaha pot limit ring game tables back in the days of the old Full Tilt Poker.
The Main Event and 2016’s November Nine
On July 9th, 2016 the world famous and most respected poker tournament in the world began. With a 6,737 player field, the 2016 WSOP Main Event was far to surpass the biggest main event ever. The largest Main Event in history took place in 2006 with a total of 8773 grinders. The event was won by Jamie Gold taking home the biggest WSOP Main event prize ever for $12,000,000. Jamie Gold made history that day not only for the biggest prize ever but for being the less favorite player to take down the main event that year.
The format of the WSOP Main Event drastically changed in 2008 when the November Nine was introduced. As an effort to build excitement to the Main Event, the final table moved to November. This change has had opposite reactions in the poker community. Some feel it does bring more excitement while others believe it has harmed the tournament and completely destroys the game flow of the main event. Since 2008 the only year the main event had over 7000 players was in 2010, some could say the November Nine is definitely a major mistake by WSOP management.
On July 18th the final table of the main event was defined after 10 days of great poker at the Rio Hotel in Casino in Las Vegas. Well known player Tom Marchese finished in 14th place cashing $427,930. Back in 2010 Marchese won the title of Card Player Magazine player of the year but he is yet to win his first bracelet in WSOP events.
2 time bracelet winner Paul Volpe cashed in 29th place for $216,211. Volpe is a well-known and successful online poker player who has cashed over $5 million in both live and online poker tournaments.
The final table will take place on October 1 – November 1st and Cliff Josephy is the chip leader with 74,600,000. Josephy has already 2 WSOP bracelets won back in 2005 and in 2013 in a Seven Card Stud event and No Limit Hold’em respectively. Josephy is also a successful online poker grinder who goes by the moniker JohnnyBax. Several times he has been ranked 1st place in the Pocketfives.com rankings. Furthermore, Josephy works as a poker instructor along with fellow poker pro Eric Haber and both have produced training videos focused for online poker players.
The November Nine will feature amazing poker action and the winner will take home the prestigious Main Event WSOP Bracelet plus $8,000,000 in cash. Definitely a must follow event for those who enjoy poker, action and the excitement to learn who the winner will be.
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