"Doyle Brunson Classic" Gets Underway December 13th

Published on November 28th, 2008 10:54 pm EST

One of the biggest events of the year, the Five Diamond World Poker Classic, got underway earlier today at the Bellagio.

There will be a total of 13 preliminary events as well as the $15k buy-in main event, which will get underway on December 13th. The main event is also known as the "Doyle Brunson Classic", and is one of the biggest single poker tournaments of the year.

There are not too many well-known poker players who skip the "Doyle Brunson Classic" - you can expect many of the top "live" pros to participate, including Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth Jr., and others.

There were 626 participants in last year's main event, which ended up creating a total prize pool of well over $9 million dollars. Eugene Katchalov ended up taking down the event for over $2.4 million dollars, while Ted Kearly came in second place for over $1 million dollars. The final table included a couple of other familiar names, including Ryan Daut and David "Devilfish" Ulliott.

Previous champions include:

2006 - Joe Hachem

2005 - Rehne Pedersen

2004 - Daniel Negreanu

2003 - Paul Phillips

2002 - Gus Hansen

The prize pools in the main event have gotten progressively bigger with each passing year. The total prize pool in 2002 was just $1.416 million dollars - it will be interesting to see if the main event can top the $9.39 million dollar prize pool from 2007, given the economic slowdown and drop-off in WPT field sizes.

As mentioned, there are a number of preliminary events, including:

Event 1 - Spade Club No Limit Hold'em - $500 + $40
Event 2 - No Limit Hold'em - $1500 + $90
Event 3 - No Limit Hold'em - $2000 + $100
Event 4 - No Limit Hold'em - $3000 + $120
Event 5 - No Limit Hold'em - $5000 + $180
Event 6 - No Limit Hold'em - $1500 + $90
Event 7 - No Limit Hold'em - $2000 + $100
Event 8 - No Limit Hold'em - $3000 + $120
Event 9 - No Limit Hold'em - $5000 + $180
Event 10 - No Limit Hold'em - $5000 + $180
Event 11 - Seniors No Limit Hold'em - $1500 + $90
Event 12 - No Limit Hold'em - $5000 + $180
Event 13 - MAIN EVENT
Event 14 - No Limit Hold'em - $500 + $40

John Phan heads into this event in first place in the Cardplayer.com POY (Player of the Year) standings. He currently has 6,704 points, which is a full 1,300 points ahead of Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier. David Pham, Ivan Demidov and Erik Seidel round out the top five.

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Filed Under: Tournament Results