For some of us it’s a dream scenario, for others it’s an absolute nightmare, and for the vast majority the issue itself is met with utter indifference. And so it is with the current debate on the possibility of a casino in Milford. There are two smallish groups that are on opposite sides of the divide, while the vast majority of residents fall into the indifferent crowd –they might have an opinion one way or the other, but either outcome will not cause them to lose any sleep.

What I’m getting at is that most issues in life boil down to our individual perspective, and are not simply a case of I’m right and you’re wrong, or vice versa. My new job could be your pink slip; my new driveway could mean your flooded basement; a casino in Milford could mean a new job for Peter and a drop in Paul’s property values.

Truth be told, there are many things that concern me about a casino on the outskirts of my town, despite the fact that for the past decade or so poker and the poker industry have been my primary source of income. So full disclosure; I’m somewhere between wanting a casino and being indifferent to it. Yes, I have my concerns, but in addition to the negative outcomes I can also see the possibilities. I don’t feel losing the casino would spell the end for Milford, or even impact the town in any meaningful way. But I also don’t feel the other way about it either. A casino in Milford doesn’t mean the end of Milford, and as a gambling man I’m willing to take the chance that the positives will outweigh the negatives in the long-run.

I’ve seen the vast majority of German’s walk by slot parlors in downtown Berlin without giving them a second look (they are for degenerates I was told); I’ve been in the collared shirt and pants required casinos in Austria, Germany, Holland and elsewhere; I’ve had incredible nights at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods WITHOUT ever putting down a bet –and I’ve had some great nights when I have put down bets too!  I’ve been to Vegas and Atlantic City, and I’ve been to illegal cardrooms as well. The point is, I’ve seen it all, and I’ve seen and experienced the good and the bad, so I’m under no illusions what a casino means.

The reason I say this is that most of the information is being peddled by people with agendas, people who are trying to turn some of these indifferent residents into partisans. But the issue will always boil down to one thing: Perspective. These pointless facts about crime increasing (studies show that crime increases more when you build a shopping mall than a casino), or outdated or anecdotal evidence about Atlantic City or shuttered buildings leading to Foxwoods are simply ways to bolster the conclusion you have already drawn: Casinos are bad; now let me go find the evidence that backs up my opinion. It’s a problem of causal fallacy, or unknown variables.

Opponents of casinos see Foxwoods as the problem for local businesses or specific unemployment rates, where proponents will point to the economic collapse of 2008 as the main cause.  The anti-casino crowd will show you P&L’s where Foxwoods is hemorrhaging money, while the pro-casino crowd will again call out “2008” and show P&L’s from the 2005 when the casino was making money hand over fist.

The question each of us has to ask ourselves is what is the trade-off we are willing to live with? Are we willing to deal with more traffic, more water and sewer issues, and the potential for petty crime to spillover, in exchange for more jobs and better economic stability in the area? Where does a casino fall in your moral hierarchy? What benefits will you gain and at what cost, because make no mistake about it; nothing is free in this world.

The truth is we simply don’t know what putting a casino in Milford will do. What if the economy booms and unemployment in the area dips to 3%? Chances are most of the earlier anti-casino advocates will be singing its praises. What if the town slips into a decline and never recovers? There will be plenty of I told you so’s and excuses like, the economy was already free-falling, and there is too much competition with Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York.

I have no problem with people that are against gambling on ideological grounds, and I have no issue with people who are concerned about their property values or their business –these are absolutely valid concerns. Where I do have a problem is when we are inundated with hyperbolic arguments with a lot of words and phrases like “possibly”, “sometimes”, and “could lead to.” And on the other side we get words and phrases such as “up to”, “if”, and “potential.”

More so, I really have an issue with a small group of citizens trying to upset the legislative process. Why are they so concerned about letting this matter go before the (right-leaning) citizens of Milford on a ballot referendum? Why are they trying to decide the outcome of the casino proposal before the selectmen have even voted on it –which happened when someone tried to force a vote a meeting some months ago?

My feeling on government is that it’s hardly ever perfect, but even if some candidate I absolutely deplore was elected, or some bill were to pass that I completely disagreed with, I still want the process. I want the vote to go to the people (or to the elected representatives), even if they do not hold the same views as me.

If ground is broken for a casino in Milford I’d be fairly happy about it; if the citizens of the Milford voted it down, or it was awarded to Everett or Suffolk Downs instead, then so be it. Nobody is right or wrong concerning the casino, we just have different perspectives.

Event #2: $25k Heads-Up Championship, Day 4

Jake Cody managed to steal Gus Hansen’s thunder when he knocked the Dane out in the semi-finals, and then Cody would go on to become the first big story of the 2011 WSOP as he bested Yevgeniy Timoshenko in the finals to become the third player in poker history to win the Triple Crown -WSOP, WPT, and EPT victories.

• 1st: Jake Cody – $851,192
• 2nd: Yevgeniy Timoshenko – $525,980
• 3rd: Gus Hansen – $283,966
• 3rd: Eric Froehlich – $283,966

Event #3: $1,500 Omaha 8 or better, Day 3

The second bracelet of the day went to a semi-pro poker player from Chicago, Francesco “Cheech” Brabaro as he took on some stiff competition in the form of Humberto Brenes, Vladimir Shchemelev, and his heads-up opponent Matthew Waxman.

1.       Francesco “Cheech” Barbaro – $262,283

2.       Kostas Kalathakis – $161,675

3.       Matt Waxman – $104,770

4.       Bradley Helm – $76,673

5.       Michael Deveronica – $56,943

6.       Humberto Brenes – $42,857

7.       Cameron McKinley – $32,654

8.       Vladimir Shchemelev – $25,174

9.       Travis Pearson – $19,617

Event #4: $5,000 No Limit Holdem, Day 2

The $5k NLHE tournament is now down to just 43 players and there is still quite a bit of star-power remaining in the field. Perhaps the best known player remaining is 2001 WSOP Main Event champ, and three-time WPT Champ, Carlos Mortensen who finds himself in the middle of the pack entering what is supposed to be the final day of the tournament -the new Hard-Stop rule at the WSOP may cause this tournament to require a fourth day to finish.

1.       Brian Lemke – 960,000

2.       Allen Bari – 686,000

3.       Ricky Fohrenbach – 642,00

4.       Sergey Rybachenko – 614,000

5.       Markus Gonsalves – 567,000

6.       Peter Gilmore – 525,000

7.       Michael Hahn – 493,000

8.       Steven Levy – 466,000

9.       Simon Charette – 464,000

10.   Richard Lyndaker – 417,000

Event #5: $1,500 Seven-Card-Stud, Day 2

With just 12 players remaining it’s likely the $1,500 Stud tournament will finish as scheduled on Saturday. Friday saw Alessio Isaia move to the top of the leader-board as the Italian continues his dominant run in 2011, but lurking in the #3 spot on the leader-board is another red hot player in Eugene Katchalov.

1.       Alessio Isaia – 232,500

2.       Eric Buchman – 220,500

3.       Eugene Katchalov – 212,500

4.       Kai Landry – 200,000

5.       Jonathan Spinks – 133,000

6.       Dennis Parker – 123,500

7.       Vasili Lazarou – 102,500

8.       Andrew Blumen – 98,000

9.       Ali Eslami – 77,000

10.   Arash Ghaneian – 77,000

11.   Ylon Schwartz – 70,000

12.   Jeremy Ausmus – 69,500

Event #6: $1,500 Limit Holdem

One of the two tournaments that began on Friday, the $1,500 Limit Holdem event attracted 675 entrants, but by the end of the day only 130 remained in the hunt. Amongst the remaining players are Jonathan Aguiar, Chino Rheem, JJ Liu, Barry Shulman, Tom Schneider, Jennifer Harman, and Matt Matros.

Event #7: $10,000 Pot Limit Holdem Championship

The second tournament that kicked-off on Friday was the first $10k Championship of the 2011 WSOP, and the field size for the Pot Limit Holdem Championship was on par with last year’s attendance number, 249 compared 268.

Amongst the 129 players who will return to the tables on Saturday are Nicholas Levi, Brandon Adams, Josh Arieh, Sam Stein, Matt Marifioti, Justin Bonomo, Dani Stern, Eric Baldwin, Ike Haxton, James Akenhead, Tom Dwan, Barry Greenstein, Daniel Negreanu, and Sorel Mizzi: All of whom have 75k+ in chips -basically the entire field is well known pros.

Results courtesy of www.wsop.com

For many years, I have been proud to call myself a poker player. This great sport has taken me to places I only imagined going and I have been blessed with much success. It is therefore with deep regret that I believe I am compelled to release the following statement.

I am deeply disappointed and embarrassed that Full Tilt players have not been paid money they are owed. I am equally embarrassed that as a result many players cannot compete in tournaments and have suffered economic harm. I am not playing in the World Series of Poker as I do not believe it is fair that I compete when others cannot. I am doing everything I can to seek a solution to the problem as quickly as possible.

My name and reputation have been dragged through the mud, through the inactivity and indecision of others and on behalf of all poker players I refuse to remain silent any longer. I have electronically filed a lawsuit against Tiltware related to the unsettled player accounts. As I am sure the public can imagine, this was not an easy decision for me.

I whole heartedly refuse to accept non-action as to repayment of players funds and I am angered that people who have supported me throughout my career have been treated so poorly.

I sincerely hope this statement will ignite those capable of resolving the problems into immediate action and would like to clarify that until a solution is reached that cements the security of all players, both US and International, I will, as I have for the last six weeks, dedicate the entirety of my time and efforts to finding a solution for those who have been wronged by the painfully slow process of repayment.

This was followed by the lawsuit (actually a complaint) being filed in a Las Vegas court, where we learned quite a bit about why Ivey is suing -the main reason seems to be that he wants a non-compete clause from his Full Tilt Poker contract nullified. You can read the entire Complaint on scribd.

This was followed by a venomous response from Full Tilt Poker, where they questioned Ivey’s motivations for filing the lawsuit:

“Contrary to his sanctimonious public statements, Phil Ivey’s meritless lawsuit is about helping just one player – himself. In an effort to further enrich himself at the expense of others, Mr. Ivey appears to have timed his lawsuit to thwart pending deals with several parties that would put money back in players’ pockets. In fact, Mr. Ivey has been invited — and has declined — to take actions that could assist the company in these efforts, including paying back a large sum of money he owes the site. Tiltware doubts Mr. Ivey’s frivolous and self-serving lawsuit will ever get to court. But if it does, the company looks forward to presenting facts demonstrating that Mr. Ivey is putting his own narrow financial interests ahead of the players he professes to help.”

It appears that not only will more details come out regarding the situation between Ivey and Full Tilt Poker, but it also looks like however this plays out the situation is going to end with a lot of hard feelings on both sides.

Event #1 $500 Casino Employee tournament, Day 3

Day 3 saw the final four players return to the tables to crown the first WSOP winner of 2011 and it was Sean Drake, a poker dealer from Sacramento, CA who would take home the top prize of $82,192.

Drake won the title after a pivotal hand that saw his opponent James Baker turn a full house (jacks full of sixes) while Drake had flopped a set of Kings, which became Kings full on the turn.

Event #2: $25k Heads-Up Championship, Day 3

Eight became four on Thursday as moving on the semi-finals were Eric Froehlich who will battle Yevgeniy Timoshenko, and Gus Hansen who will take on Jake Cody on the other side of the bracket.

Friday will see the remaining participants battle for the over $850k in first-place prize-money, although each player remaining is guaranteed a very nice score of $283,966.

Event #3: $1,500 Omaha 8 or better, Day 2

The second day of the Omaha 8 tournament got underway with 201 players remaining, and when the dust settled there were just 25 left; although there are a number of big names in contention. Here is a look at the top 10 chip counts:

1.       Francesco Barbaro — 459,000

2.       Matthew Waxman — 458,000

3.       Vladimir Shchemelev — 335,000

4.       Bradley Helm — 308,000

5.       Jimmy Fricke — 278,000

6.       Daniel Smith — 235,000

7.       Kostas Kalathakis — 209,000

8.       Michael Deveronica — 200,000

9.       Richard Monroe — 184,000

10.   Travis Pearson — 175,000

Other notables: Humberto Brenes, Scott Clements, and Lex Veldhuis

Event #4: $5,000 No Limit Holdem, Day 1

865 players registered for the $5k NLHE tournament on Thursday and at the end of the day 243 players were left standing. Here are the top 10 chip counts at the end of Day 1:

1.       Gavin Cochrane — 175,500

2.       Victor Ramdin — 174,700

3.       Brian Lemke — 171,900

4.       Steven Merrifield — 155,000

5.       Jordan Morgan — 136,400

6.       Greg Dyer — 130,000

7.       Brandon Cantu — 129,500

8.       Marc Delimal — 120,000

9.       Kevin Saul — 115,000

10.   David Sands — 110,000

Event #5: $1,500 Seven-Card-Stud, Day 1

A total of 357 players registered for the first seven0card-stud event of the 2011 WSOP and at the end of the day only 112 remained with the chip-leaders reading like a who’s who of poker. Here is a look at the top 10 chip counts heading into Day 2:

1.       Ylon Schwartz — 46,000

2.       Shaun Deeb — 36,000

3.       Andy Bloch — 31,500

4.       John D’agostino — 28,200

5.       Chad Brown — 24,700

6.       Bryan Devonshire — 24,000

7.       Tom Dwan — 23,000

8.       Eli Elezra — 21,000

9.       Ali Eslami — 20,000

10.   Josh Arieh — 20,000

Grudge Matches

Two of the three Grudge Matches took place yesterday, with Johnny Chan exacting revenge on Phil Hellmuth in a one-match winner-take-all battle, while Chris Moneymaker held off Sammy Farha in a nail-biting best of three match that came down to the final match -and required moneymaker to hit a two-outer on the river.

For complete recaps of all the 2011 World Series of Poker events you can head on over to www.wsop.com

Here is a look at the action on Day 2of the 2011 World Series of Poker:

Event #1: The $500 Casino Employee tournament, Day 2

Thanks to the new rule that was put in place prior to the 2011 WOP the Casino Employee tournament was unable to crown a champion last night as the WSOP only allows tournaments to run for 10 levels on any given day.

So the two-day event will now add a third day with the final four participants heading back to the Rio at 3PM to crown the first champion of the 2011 WSOP.

Here is a look at the chip counts for the remaining players:

1.       Sean Drake — 1,058,000

2.       Jason Baker — 727,000

3.       Claudio Falcaro — 420,000

4.       Christopher Perez — 347,000

Event #2: The $25k NLHE Heads-Up Championship, Day 2 of 4

What started with 128 of the best poker players in the world is now down to just eight, with Gus Hansen being the most recognizable player remaining hands down. Gus won’t have a cakewalk to the title by any means, as the other remaining players are all young stars including Jake Cody, Matt Marifioti, and Eric Froehlich. Here is a look at the matchups for the next round of the event:

• Jake Cody vs. Anthony Guetti
• Gus Hansen vs. Matt Marafioti
• Eric Froehlich vs. Nikolay Evdakov
• Yevgeniy Timoshenko vs. David Paredes

Event #3: The $1,500 Omaha 8 or better tournament, Day 1

Black Friday, what Black Friday? The $1,500 Omaha 8 tournament bested the previous record set in 2009 by seven entrants, and crushed last year’s attendance by over 100 participants. Of the 925 original entrants just 210 made it through to Day 2 of the tournament, and there is still a lot of star-power remaining in the field. Here is a look at the Top 10 chip counts at the end of Day 1:

1.       Guilaumme Rivet – 71,200

2.       Andy Seth – 61,700

3.       Gary Bolden – 60,000

4.       Richard Monroe – 59,900

5.       Cary Falk – 59,800

6.       James Dempsey – 58,900

7.       Francesco Barbaro – 58,800

8.       Sorel Mizzi – 56,400

9.       Michael Jensen – 46,000

10.   Humberto Brenes – 44,000

Odds and Ends

• Ivey’s Lawsuit filed in the District Court of Clark County, Nevada: Full Tilt responds

On Wednesday we got our first look at the lawsuit filed against Tiltware by Phil Ivey [read the entire complaint here] as well as getting a response from Full Tilt Poker, which reads something like you might expect from a jilted teenage girl. Here is the complete statement issued by Full Tilt:

“Contrary to his sanctimonious public statements, Phil Ivey’s meritless lawsuit is about helping just one player – himself. In an effort to further enrich himself at the expense of others, Mr. Ivey appears to have timed his lawsuit to thwart pending deals with several parties that would put money back in players’ pockets. In fact, Mr. Ivey has been invited — and has declined — to take actions that could assist the company in these efforts, including paying back a large sum of money he owes the site. Tiltware doubts Mr. Ivey’s frivolous and self-serving lawsuit will ever get to court. But if it does, the company looks forward to presenting facts demonstrating that Mr. Ivey is putting his own narrow financial interests ahead of the players he professes to help.”

Here is a look back at Day 1 of the 2011 WSOP:

Event #1: $500 Casino Employee Tournaments

A total of 850 players registered for the first event of the 2011 WSOP, and while the tournament is only open to Casino Employees as usual a few notable names entered including Matt Savage, Ty Stewart, Jack McClelland, and Jean-Robert Bellande (I have no idea what his role is at some casino).

While none of the notable names that entered the tournament made it through to Day 2 of the tournament, 77 players did survive Day 1’s action which saw the money bubble burst when 81 players remained in the tournament. With a $382,500 prize-pool the winner of the tournament will book an impressive win of $82,292.

Event #2: $25k NLHE Heads-Up Championship

128 of the best poker players in the world turned out to partake in the $25k Heads-Up Championship and after two rounds of play the field has been cut down to just 32 players. The over $3 million prize-pool will see the winner of the tournament earn an impressive payday of $851,192, while the runner-up will receive about a half-million dollars.

Here is a look at the remaining players and their round 3 opponents:

David Benyamine vs. Anthony Guetti

Chris Moorman vs. Richard Lyndaker

Dani Stern vs. Jake Cody

Isaac Haxton vs. Jonathan Jaffe

Ashton Griffin vs. Tom Dwan

Daniel Alaei vs. Gus Hansen

Steve Blilirakis vs. Trevor Pope

Matt Marafioti vs. Maxim Lykov

Eric Froehlich vs. Steve Zolotow

John Duthie vs. Carlos Mortenson

Jason Smirnov vs. Darren Elias

Erik Cajelais vs. Nikolay Evdakov

Yevgeniy Timshenko vs. Amritraj Singh

Oliver Busquet vs. Andrew Robl

Kunimaro Kojo vs. Nick Shulman

David Paredes vs. John Juanda

Odds and Ends

• Juanda vs. Bord?

In the strangest moment of the day, John Juanda and James Bord got into a heated exchange -despite not playing one another-according to Bluff Magazine. Apparently some words were exchanged and Juanda told security that he felt threatened by Bord. What an interesting heads-up match this would be!

• Phil Ivey blasts Full Tilt and announces he is skipping the WSOP in protest

On Facebook, Phil Ivey released his first statement since Black Friday in which he blasted Full Tilt’s handling of player withdrawals and stated he would be skipping the 2011 WSOP until US players were paid. You can read the entire statement at Ivey’s official Facebook Page.

Unfortunately, the PPA once again sent a barrage of meaningless slogans and numbers into the air, as people were seen carrying signs that said “Ease the Debt, Let us Bet” and “Poker is not a Crime” amongst other witty placards.

First off, let me just say that I respect everyone who attended and spoke at the rally, and am a major pro-poker advocate, but we need to get our act together as a community, in order to push a serious online poker agenda forward.

With mixed messages coming from the speakers, covering every angle from it’s about freedom, to people are going to do it anyway, to its legal in other countries, the PPA will once again have a hard time advancing their message -especially considering the rather poor turnout for an event scheduled weeks in advance by a group claiming to have over 1 million members!

One terrible point was brought up by 2004 WSOP Champion Greg Raymer, who according to the USA Today story told the assembled crowd: “There’s over 10 million people (in the USA) that are known to have online poker accounts. There’s estimated to be 50 million people in this country, adults, who at least play poker a little bit,” Raymer said. “So most Americans are on our side. … We have to be active and make sure that message gets to our representatives in the U.S. Congress and in the state legislatures.” [bold mine]

Really??? 10 million is a majority of over 300 million? It’s silly arguments like these -that anyone who has ever played poker at their kitchen table is pro-online poker-that hurt, not help, the online poker cause. Please stop acting like you are speaking for 50 million people and just come up with a coherent argument for WHY online poker should be legalized! Prohibition doesn’t work: Increased tax revenue: thousands of new jobs: Consumer protections, and so on.

The poker is not a crime routine is also growing very, very, old. Not only is it illegal to play poker for money in many areas, and in a variety of situations, but regardless of the legality of poker itself, the online poker sites are breaking numerous US laws by providing online poker, including as we have seen money laundering through phony shell corporations! If there is a law prohibiting something, guess what? IT’S AGAINST THE LAW! Whether you agree with it or not.

Another doozy from Tuesday’s rally was uttered by Linda Johnson who stated: “I don’t understand why I don’t have the same rights that people in other countries have,” Is this really the arguments for online poker we should be making? You don’t have the same rights as other countries because each country is different!

So who is really to blame for the current state of online poker in the United States? Is it Bill Frist and John Kyl who pushed the bill through the US Senate in the middle of the night? Is it Representative Bob Goodlatte, the architect of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act? Is it the 2006 Congress, who basically passed the provision without even reading it? Is it the online poker rooms who continued to serve US customers despite having to break laws to do it? Is it the current Congress who has failed to pass any online gaming legislation over the past five years? Is it poker advocacy groups like the Poker players Alliance (PPA), who have produced next to nothing in terms of results?

Actually, if I had to blame any one group of people I would point the finger at myself and the rest of the online poker community, who idly sat by as the cloud formed, and were content to react to whatever was loosed upon us, instead of acting beforehand.

Yes, some of us joined the PPA, and like good little lemmings we sent out those automated E-Mails to our members of Congress, but beyond on that what have we done as a community to push forward for a legal and regulated online poker industry?

You might be asking, what could I have done? Unfortunately the only thing we could have done as a community was to stop playing -a situation we are now facing but not at our own choosing. Had we simply shutdown the US poker market ourselves we would have forced the online poker rooms to push for some type of legislation. By simply being contented with the status-quo we gave the online poker rooms the best of both worlds: Our business as well as the capability of operating in the United States tax-free! The online poker rooms were more than happy to keep US poker in its legal gray area as it meant more money in their pockets -and the long-term outlook of the industry has suffered because of this.

Déjà vu as Seidel wins Super-High-Roller title

29 players turned out for the first ever WPT $100k Super-High-Roller tournament, and in another amazing performance, Erik Seidel’s incredible 2011 tournament campaign rolled on with another first-place finish in a super-high-roller tournament. Seidel pocketed his seventh six-figure score of 2011 (which was also his second seven-figure score of 2011) and now has over $5.5 million in earnings on the year.

WPT Super High Roller Payouts

1.       Erik Seidel, $1,092,780

2.       Erick Lindgren, $700,500

3.       Daniel Negreanu, $448,320

4.       Vivek Rajkumar, $336,240

5.       Justin Bonomo, $224,160

Considering Black Friday’s effects on the poker world the 29 player field has to be viewed as an incredibly positive outcome for poker, especially when you consider a number of poker’s biggest stars were nowhere to be found in Las Vegas this past week.

Frankenberger locks up WPT Player of the Year award

In one of the closest POY races in the nine-year history of the WPT, Andy Frankenberger managed to beat Vivek Rajkumar by a mere 100 points for the crown. However, Frankenberger’s biggest challenges came from two players who made deep runs in the $25k Championship, Shannon Schorr and Sam el Sayed. However, both players failed to finish in the 5^th place or better position necessary to overtake Frankenberger.

Frankenberger joins a very shortlist of players that have won the WPT POY award -and amazingly there is not a single fluke player on the list:

• Season 1: Howard Lederer
• Season 2: Erick Lindgren
• Season 3: Daniel Negreanu
• Season 4: Gavin Smith
• Season 5: J. C. Tran
• Season 6: Jonathan Little
• Season 7: Bertrand Grospellier
• Season 8: Faraz Jaka
• Season 9: Andy Frankenberger

Scott Seiver wins $25k Championship

With a 220 player-strong field the WPT Championship would make two players instant millionaires, but considering the participants in the field my guess is that 75% of the field was already millionaires! In the end it was Scott Seiver who would go on to win the title, besting a tough final table that included PCA champ Galen Hall, who with his third place finish has taken a commanding lead in the POY races at both Bluff and Card Player Magazine.

WPT World Championship Final Table Payouts

1.       Scott Seiver, $1,618,344

2.       Farzad Bonyadi, $1,061,900

3.       Galen Hall, $589,355

4.       Roger Teska, $371, 665

5.       Tony Gargano, $278,749

6.       Justin Young, $225,654

• Seat 1: Galen Hall – 5,095,000 chips

Hall is a relatively young player but has already made a huge splash in the poker world thanks to his 2011 PCA Main Event victory where he booked a $2.3 million payday after making a huge comeback against Chris Oliver in heads-up play.

Since his PCA win Hall has gone on to final table the €25k High-Roller tournament at the EPT Grand Final and finished 2^nd to Jason Mercier in the Champion of Champions freeroll.

• Seat 2: Justin Young – 1,750,000 chips

Young is a prolific tournament pro who has amassed nearly $2.3 million in career tournament earnings. Best known for his runner-up finish in the 2008 WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond Poker Championship, Young is still looking for his first major win, although he has a number of wins in preliminary tournaments.

• Seat 3: Tony Gargano – 3,550,000 chips

Gargano has been playing in major tournaments since 2007 and has amassed 8 WSOP cashes and now 6 WPT cashes! With about $350,000 in winnings Gargano will have his first chance at a major victory, and will be making his first televised appearance at the poker tables.

• Seat 4: Roger Teska – 3,600,000 chips

Teska is the least experienced player in the field, but does have nearly $173k in career tournament winnings. No stranger to big tournaments, Teska has 5 WSOP cashes on his resume, but is in uncharted territory at the final table of a major tournament.

• Seat 5: Scott Seiver – 5,075,000 chips

Seiver is quickly proving himself to be one of the best poker players in the world, whether playing tournaments, online, or in high-stakes cash games. Quietly having amassed over $2 million in tournament winnings for his career, including a WSOP bracelet in 2008, Seiver is on the verge of superstardom in the poker world.

• Seat 6: Freddy Bonyadi – 2,470,000 chips

Bonyadi is the elder statesman at the final table, and has amassed over $2.7 million in career tournament earnings -a career that traces all the way back to his first cash in 1994! Bonyadi is a two-time WSOP bracelet winner and made a very deep run in the 2005 WSOP Main Event before finishing in 41^st place.

Amazingly, Bonyadi is the only sponsored player at the final table -Bonyadi is a Full Tilt Poker Red Pro.