Day 1 of the $50K Poker Players' Championship Awaits
Welcome to Event #55: $50,000 Poker Players' Championship, the tournament that combines a high buy-in with a variety of different disciplines to occupy a special place on the WSOP schedule. This marks the eighth year the WSOP has included the prestigious $50K tourney, with the tournament consistently proving one of the most compelling of the summer thanks to the always tough fields it attracts.
It began in 2006 as a $50K H.O.R.S.E. event, with the late David "Chip" Reese memorably prevailing over a 143-player field in a tournament that concluded with an especially lengthy heads-up battle with Andy Bloch. With Reese's passing late the following year, the memory of his win and the Poker Hall of Famer's important contributions to poker have been preserved with the awarding of the David "Chip" Reese Trophy to each year's winner of the $50K event.
It remained a H.O.R.S.E. tourney for the next three years, with Freddy Deeb, Scotty Nguyen, and David Bach each earning titles. Then in 2010 the format was expanded to cover eight different games — 2-7 triple draw, limit hold'em, Omaha-8, razz, stud, stud-8, no-limit hold'em, and pot-limit Omaha.
Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi won the first "8-game mix" version of the event in 2010, newly dubbed the "Poker Players' Championship." Brian Rast would win in 2011, then Mizrachi would come back to earn a second title in the event last year.
| Year | Event Name | Winner | First Prize | Entrants | Prize Pool |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | $50K H.O.R.S.E. | David "Chip" Reese | $1,716,000 | 143 | $6,864,000 |
| 2007 | $50K World Championship H.O.R.S.E. | Freddy Deeb | $2,276,832 | 148 | $7,104,000 |
| 2008 | $50K World Championship H.O.R.S.E. | Scotty Nguyen | $1,989,120 | 148 | $7,104,000 |
| 2009 | $50K World Championship H.O.R.S.E. | David Bach | $1,276,802 | 95 | $4,560,000 |
| 2010 | $50K Poker Players' Championship | Michael Mizrachi | $1,559,046 | 116 | $5,568,000 |
| 2011 | $50K Poker Players' Championship | Brian Rast | $1,720,328 | 128 | $6,144,000 |
| 2012 | $50K Poker Players' Championship | Michael Mizrachi | $1,451,527 | 108 | $5,184,000 |
The journey to find the next $50K Poker Players' Championship winner begins at 5 p.m. local time, with the schedule calling for players to play five 100-minute levels on this first day of the five-day event. Come back here to PokerNews then for start-to-finish coverage of this annual highlight of the WSOP schedule.