WSOPC Event #11: $1,700 MAIN EVENT

An increase in players occurred in 2011 as 128 players took part in the Poker Players Championship as a $6,144,000 prizepool was created that saw the final sixteen guaranteed a $108,503 payday.

Barry Greenstein, Mike Binger, Josh Arieh, Jeff Lisandro and Vladimir Schemelev all made the money before Jason Lester became the final table bubble boy when his    was outdrawn by chip leader Minh Ly's    following an ace on the flop and an eight on the turn.

When play was down to four-handed action, it would be Phil Hellmuth holding the chip lead as he continued to apply pressure to the shorter stacks as only Brian Rast managed to make a fight back as the dinner break bell tolled. Once Ahmed fell in 4th and Ly in 3rd, Hellmuth would hold a slight chip lead over Rast, but that lead would extend further and further with Rast dropping down to roughly 2.9 million of the 19.2 million in play before mounting an epic comeback.

Firstly Rast doubled with ace-high versus Hellmuth's flush draw and then doubled again with top pair versus another Hellmuth flush draw. In the final hand on a     flop, Rast held    against Hellmuth's   , and when the turn and river blanked out with the   and  , Hellmuth exited in 2nd as Rast was crowned champion.

For Rast, it would be his second career WSOP bracelet and biggest score of his career as he took home the $1,720,328 first prize after defeating one of the most star-studded fields in recent history and etched his name on the David "Chip" Reese Memorial Trophy.