WSOPC National Championship draws 126 entrants

With the World Series of Poker Circuit Series National Championship now in its third year the yearly event is starting to gain some traction as a major event in the poker world each year. In addition to the 100 automatic qualifiers, the WSOPC National Championship has also been opened-up to some of the top poker players in the world (the top 100 players on the WSOP Leader-Board), who, unlike the automatic qualifiers from the Circuit Series, must pony-up a $10,000 buy-in if they choose to play in the tournament.

This year the WSOPC National Championship is taking place in New Orleans after two years in Las Vegas. In 2011 the WSOPC National Championship took place just before the WSOP tournament series and was only open to the 100 qualifiers from the WSOPC tour. In 2012 the tournament was held just before the WSOP Main Event, and this was when the tournament was opened-up to the Top 100 point getters on the WSOP Leader-Board –57 of whom played in the event last year.

This time around 26 additional players registered for the tournament, likely due to the location and timing of the tournament (last year the entire poker world was in Las Vegas for the WSOP Main Event). So, the final tally saw all 100 players who qualified for the $1,000,000 World Series of Poker Circuit Series National Championship freeroll tournament, along with 26 of the 100 players among the Top 100 points-leaders on the WSOP POY Leader-board.

After two days of play the tournament has played-down to the final eight players, with some very big names among the final table participants, including two-time WSOP bracelet winner Brock Parker, October Niner Jeremy Ausmus, and WPT Champion Joe Tehan.

Here is a look at the remaining players and their chip-counts heading into Day 3 of the tournament:

1. Brock Parker – 825,000
2. Jeremy Ausmus – 799,000
3. Max Steinberg – 738,000
4. Jonathan Hilton – 588,000
5. Robert Panitch – 338,000
6. Nicolas Vaca-Rondon – 223,000
7. Joe Tehan – 177,000
8. John Bowman – 118,000

And here is a look at the final table payouts for the event:

• 1^st place: $355,599
• 2^nd place: $219,799
• 3^rd place: $156,743
• 4^th place: $114,008
• 5^th place: $84,544
• 6^th place: $63,894
• 7^th place: $49,187
• 8^th place: $38,570

*Resources: www.wsop.com