Poker wonderkid Peter Eastgate getting close to defending his title

Not since Johnny Chan in 1987 and 1988 has anybody defended the $10,000 main event world title at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. That prospect gets even more difficult now with many times more players being present in the main event than twenty years ago. Over 6000 players entered the main event this year and that makes defending the title far more difficult.

The 2008 champion Peter Eastgate is down to the final 185 players as of yesterday with several days play left before the final nine take a few months break before coming back in November to play for the title and an $8.5 million dollar first place prize.

There are some other notable survivors as well and superstar Phil Ivey is still going strong and currently in the top twenty. Now the holder of seven World Series bracelets, Ivey has basically done it all in the world of poker. There are not many players who can match his live tournament record and when you factor in that he is one of the biggest earners in online poker then this just underlines how good he is.

Not many players excel at both but Ivey does. Another notable survivor is the ever popular David Benyamine, another regular player at the highstakes tables and if Benyamine won then this would be one of the most popular main event victories for years and probably since Stu Ungar won in 1998.

There are a few notable British players left as well and it is no surprise to see James Akenhead currently in ninth place with around 2.6 million in chips. James has been a prominent face on the poker circuit in the UK for a while and is well respected amongst many players. There is definitely a major title and a huge sponsorship deal just around the corner for this young man.

It will also be worth seeing if any of the players at the latter stages of this years tournament will be poached in the same way that they were last year. The 2008 event was tainted slightly with the Tiffany Michelle affair but marketing and promotion is big business now in poker with many sites doing whatever they can to attract business and exposure to their operation.

Personally I think that the whole affair is getting awfully close to being a circus and the WSOP have too many tournaments and too many players. Gone are the days when the best players in the world only participated. Now the situation is that anyone with a few dollars can win an online satellite and win their seat in a WSOP event.

The amount of poor players at the series is staggering but that probably makes some of the hold ‘em events good value. More players play texas hold’em than any other form of poker and probably all other forms of poker combined. It has reached a stage now where the $10,000 main event isn’t even remotely the largest tournament by way of buy-in during the series. There were $50,000 and $40,000 buy-in events this year which kind of makes a mockery of the winner of the main event being called “world champion”

The media frenzy will be reaching fever peach even as we speak as the action narrows down to the exclusive final table. Another notable survivor is Dennis Phillips who came very close to winning it last year. But Peter Eastgate could go close to emulating Greg Raymer who went into the final 30 players in 2005 after winning it in 2004, that was some defence by Raymer but let’s see if Eastgate can beat that this year.

By Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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