It's not just anyone who can walk into a room, plop down $50,000 and take a seat at a table, willing to risk it all for no guaranteed return.
But the 100+ players who do this annually at the World Series of Poker, do it with the confidence and the swagger of anyone who believes they are the best at what they do.
The $50,000 Poker Player's Championship brings out poker's greatest stars -- on poker's greatest stage. This year the game format is an 8-game mix, and by the end, one man will be standing, crowned the winner, collect the Chip Reese Trophy and the shiniest of new WSOP gold bracelets to likely add to his or her collection.
As the clock struck 5 PM local time, the players started making their way into the famed Amazon Room to begin Event #2, the first open bracelet event of the 2010 WSOP.
Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Jeffrey Lisandro, defending champion David Bach, past champions Scotty Nguyen and Freddy Deeb and other big names including Phil Hellmuth, Gus Hansen, Jason Mercier, Eli Elezra, Tom Dwan, Barry Greenstein, Isaac Haxton, Erick Lindgren, Vitaly Lunkin, Mike Matusow, Dario Minieri, Daniel Negreanu, Greg Raymer, Huck Seed and Eric Seidel just to name a few. They took their seats, the flash bulbs popped and after Brunson announced the Shuffle Up and Deal, play was under way.
The $50K event, is a 5-day structured tournament, so we won't know who will win this thing until late Tuesday night -- or if history is any indication -- in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. But the good news for poker fans is ESPN is here to document this event and will kick off its 2010 WSOP coverage on July 27 with this star-studded event.
At the time of this posting, 111 players have entered thus far, with about 2 hours to go before registration closes officially.
It's great to have the WSOP back in action. We look forward to seeing the stories unfold, one card at a time.