Poker’s biggest, greatest, grandest, and most spectacular attraction began June 1 at the 42nd annual World Series of Poker. This year’s 58-tournament poker series officially began with the Casino Employees Championship. With 850 entrants, it established a record for this event.
WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel took the main stage inside the Pavilion Tournament Room and started things in grand style. Keeping with ritual that has become an annual tradition, all casino employees were asked to join in with a rousing rendition of the customary announcement that begins all WSOP events. “Shuffle Up and Deal” boomed across the room at 12:35 p.m. and cards flew into the air.
Sean Drake, from Folsom, CA, who deals poker at Folsom’s Lake Bowl, won the Casino Employees Championship to take home $82,292 in prize money. The runner up in this three-day event was Jason Baker, a poker dealer and floorman from Assiniboia, Saskatchewan Canada.
“I did not think it would mean anything at first,” said Drake. “But now, it’s like ‘wow.’ I wanted that gold bracelet as soon as they put it on the final table. At that point, it was the only thing I was gunning for. I told my friends, I’m going to win this. I want to be one of the guys who said he would win, and then did it.”
The inaugural days of this year’s WSOP also featured a couple of made for TV “grudge matches,” based on famous confrontations from poker’s past. Chris Moneymaker beat Sam Farha again, just as he did during the 2003 main event—the one that set off the poker boom. The original match, won by the then-unknown newcomer to the poker scene, is widely considered by most authorities one of poker’s watershed moments. Following Moneymaker’s shocking victory at Binion’s Horseshoe in downtown Las Vegas, the recreational poker “Everyman” transformed the lives of millions of people who suddenly became devoted players and fans, and poker became chic. Another heads-up match reprised the moment during the 1989 World Series of Poker when two-time defending world champion Johnny Chan was gunning for an unprecedented thirdstraight victory. The only target in his path was a brash young newcomer from Wisconsin named Phil Hellmuth, Jr.
Twenty-four-year-old Hellmuth upset Chan with a pair of nines to become poker’s youngest world champ at the time. Chan’s once in a lifetime opportunity to establish a near mythic record that likely would never be broken—winning a trifecta of three consecutive world poker championships— was shattered. Hellmuth’s unlikely upset victory ignited the career of a new poker superstar who would eventually go on to surpass Chan in gold bracelet victories.
Chan waited 22 years for a rematch. At the 2011 WSOP, he got his revenge in a single-elimination headsup poker match that Chan won. Hellmuth was behind early, but doubled up on a key hand by making a pair of nines, reminiscent of his victory two decades earlier. That gave him nearly a 2-to- 1 chip lead. But Chan ultimately was victorious only a few minutes later with a pair of eights, when Hellmuth missed a straight.
Over the next seven weeks, the Rio will be the epicenter of all things poker-related. Poker players, media, and fans from all over the world are expected to flood into Las Vegas for what promises to be the most exciting and expansive WSOP in history.
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