Just Poker Talk

• Tom Schneider is the 2007 WSOP Player of the Year.

Tom was eliminated in 16th Place in the final Preliminary Event in this year’s WSOP, the $5,000 No Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball with rebuys. He was in danger of losing the POY to Jeffrey Lisandro if Jeff could finish in the money, 7th place or better. Just a few hands later Jeff was eliminated in 14th place to secure the POY for Tom.

edit: Erik Seidel wins the 2-7 Draw Lowball winning $538,834 besting Chad Brown who receives $324,777 for 2nd place. Main Event starts at Noon Vegas time.

When I was doing some research for this post I came across:

 All-Time WSOP Player Stats

This site is full of very interesting information covering the 38 years of the WSOP. The chart provided includes Name, Bracelets, Times in the Money, WSOP Earnings and with just a click on the column heading you can sort the stats by that column.

It is quickly apparent that since the explosion of the WSOP when Chris Moneymaker won in 2003, that the top WSOP Earners are the Main Event winners and final table participants the last couple years, when over 5,600 in 2005 and close to 8,800 in 2006 entered. Only Hellmuth and Cloutier are in the top 10 and played in the WSOP before 1990.

Chan, Harrington, Deeb, ‘Jesus’, Seidel, Ivey and Brunson are in the 2nd 10. So many more In The Moneys for the most part than the top 10. ITM 

Phil Hellmuth is on top of 2 of the charts of course, Bracelets with 11 and ITM with 63.  He is currently in 6th on the WSOP Earnings all time. Guess I have to listen more closely when he once again tells all that will listen he is the greatest poker player ever.

What does all this mean?

• The money available to win now at the WSOP or a WSOP Circuit event is enormous. A direct result of initially pocket cameras getting bigger audiences to watch televised poker and 5 straight years of unknowns winning the WSOP Main Event  and of course on-line Poker. All contributed to an influx of ‘Dead Money’ into the WSOP. Everybody has a chance to with the WSOP Main Event Lottery or as the Pros say ‘Crap shoot’.
• Final table at the Main Event will probably get you in the top 20 on the WSOP Money Earners, higher if the entries go up again.
• Poker Players from ‘Back in the Day’ just were born to early to make the amounts of money available now. See Johnny Moss 9 bracelets including 3 Main Events for $824,922 compared to Jamie Gold 1 Main Event bracelet for $12,014,078.  Or:
• Doyle Brunson 10 bracelets including 2 Main Events for 2nd all time and 29 times in the money for $2, 668,332 and then see Robert Varkonyi 1 Main Event bracelet and 1 time in the money for $2,000,000.
• Players that played the WSOP before 1990 and are still playing competitively for the most part have done very well, Brunson, Cloutier, Chan, Hellmuth……. 
• Of course everything costs more now than ‘Back in the Day’ or as Grandpa Joe would say:   ‘Movies used to cost a nickel’.

So I got sidetracked with the All-Time WSOP Stats and missed an opportunity to tell you all about Tom Schneider who contributes over at Pokerati. You can still find out about Tom at Hard Boiled Poker and view the July 1st post there after Tom won his 2nd Bracelet of the 2007 WSOP.

WSOP, WSOP POY, Tom Schneider, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Moss, Johnny Chan, Chris Moneymaker, Chris Jesus Ferguson, Dan Harrington, T.J. Cloutier, Freddy Deeb, Phil Ivey, Erik Seidel, Jeff Lisandro, Jamie Gold, Robert Varkonyi,