News / nono / 19 June 2008 / Leave a comment

21 facts about the WSOP Event 31, $2,500 Short Handed Hold 'Em, including a correction about Barry Greenstein, that you may not have known.

• The $2,500 buy-in Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em championship attracted 1,012 entries, creating a prize pool totaling $2,327,600. The top 108 finishers collected prize money.

• The number of entrants increased over last year, when 847 players registered for this same event. These figures represent an increase of 19.4 percent.

• The tournament was played over three consecutive days. The final table was played on the ESPN main stage. There was no other final table played on this day, which was one of the few days on this year's schedule with only one scheduled final table.

• Six-Handed Hold'em emphasizes short-handed poker skills. Rather than a full table of nine players, each table is played six-handed (or less, as players bust out). This generally requires competitors to play cards out of the standard range of starting-hand requirements. It also makes post-flop skill paramount to victory. The game was included on the WSOP schedule as a concerted effort to measure as diverse a range of poker skills as possible.

• Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em made its WSOP debut in 2005. Three Six-Handed events were included on the 2006 schedule. Last year, there was only one Six-Handed event. Former champions from these events include Isaac "The General" Galazan, Dutch Boyd, Bill Chen, Jeff Madsen, and Jason Warner. Rep Porter won the event held earlier on this year's schedule.

• This is the second of three Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em events on the 2008 WSOP schedule.

• Last year's winner was Hoyt Corkins. He did not enter this year's tournament, because he was playing in another event when this tournament started.

• The second-place finisher was Seth Fischer, from Atlanta, GA. Prior to taking up poker, he played college basketball and attended Emory University.

• Third-place finisher Justin Filtz, from Stevens Point, WI nearly tied a record once thought to be unbreakable. In 2007, Steve Billirakis became the youngest WSOP gold bracelet winner in history, at the age of 21 years and 11 days (at his time of victory). Had Filtz managed to win this event, he would have tied Billirakis, with the exact same age. Note: The record set by Billirakis last year was eclipsed at WSOP-Europe last September.

• Former WSOP gold bracelet winner (1997) Kevin Song made it to the final table and ended up as the fourth-place finisher.

• 1998 world champion Scotty Nguyen finished in seventh place. This was his first time to cash at this year's World Series. He now has 35 career in-the-money finishes.

• French poker pioneer Bruno Fitoussi cashed, finishing in 11th place.

• Two-time WSOP gold bracelet winner Bill Chen took 19th place.

• Other former WSOP gold bracelet winners who cashed in this event included Shankar Pillai (31st), Ian Johns (33rd), Max Pescatori (41st), Mark Vos (82nd), David "Devilfish" Ulliott (94th), and Brandon Cantu (106th).

• Avery Cardoza, the owner of Cardoza Publishing (which published Doyle Brunson's famous "Super/System") finished 77th.

• Through the conclusion of Event #31, only one player has cashed six times - Nikolay Evdakov, from Moscow, Russia. He is best positioned to challenge the record set for "Most WSOP Cashes in a Single Year," shared by four players -- Michael Binger (2007), Chad Brown (2007), Phil Hellmuth, Jr. (2006), and Humberto Brenes (2006), with eight in-the-money strikes.

• The current Milwaukee's Best Light "Player of the Year" standings shows Erick Lindgren on top of the points list, with one gold bracelet win and four cashes. However, Daniel Negreanu and Barry Greenstein are now close behind.

• Through the conclusion of Event #31 at this year's World Series of Poker, the gold bracelet count by nations and states reads as follows:
8 - Nevada
5 - California
4 - New York
2 - Canada
2 - Italy
2 - Missouri
1 - Germany
1 - Holland
1 - Maryland
1 - Michigan
1 - Pennsylvania
1 - Russia
1 - South Carolina
1 - Wisconsin

• So far, this WSOP has been deemed "The Year of the Pro." Professional poker players have reasserted their dominance in tournament play by winning a vast majority of gold bracelets (76 percent), especially over the first half of the schedule. However, it is important to note that amateur poker players have dominated WSOP tournaments since 2005. Here is a listing of the "pro versus amateur" scoreboard each year since 2000 (Note: The Casino Employees Event is not counted):
2000 - Pros 14 to Amateurs 8
2001 - Pros 18 to Amateurs 7
2002 - Pros 18 to Amateurs 16
2003 - Pros 24 to Amateurs 12
2004 - Pros 21 to Amateurs 11
2005 - Amateurs 26 to Pros 18
2006 - Amateurs 27 to Pros 17
2007 - Amateurs 34 to Pros 20
2008 (through Event #30) Pros 23 to Amateurs 7

Since 2000, pros currently lead amateurs in the gold bracelet race by a margin of 173 to 148.

It should be noted that the largest influx of new poker players to the WSOP took place during the period when Amateurs won a majority of events. There are contrasting interpretations of what this data means. Some suggest the larger number of amateurs playing at the WSOP inflates their winning percentages by sheer volume. Others (most pros) point out that the WSOP has the best tournament structures of any poker event in the world and that professionals have a much greater opportunity to prove their superior skill under this format.

• The Event #31 winner Dario Minieri is to be classified as a professional. Accordingly, through the conclusion of Event #31 at this year's World Series of Poker, the "Professionals versus Amateurs" gold bracelet scoreboard reads:
Professionals - 24 wins
Amateurs - 5 wins
Semi-Pros - 2 wins

• CORRECTION: This will address a previous tournament report, specifically Barry Greenstein's victory in the Razz championship, which was Event #26. Greenstein's background has been widely misreported for quite some time and some confusion may continue due to the contents of that report. It should be noted that Greenstein has been a professional poker player for several decades. Many writers, reporters, and interviewers have latched on to a widely-misreported notion that Greenstein first worked in the high-tech industry, and then retired from that field to play poker. This is simply not true. Greenstein has been playing poker professionally for many, many years. While he was playing poker as a pro, he took a position with a high-tech company for various reasons while he maintained his status as a professional poker player. We kindly asks that all media correct written verbiage that makes any reference to Greenstein leaving the high-tech field to play poker. As is the case with many multi-talented poker pros, he has excelled at more than one occupation.