It is the traditional finisher for the calendar year for the World Poker Tour. Beginning tomorrow, the WPT will make their stop at the Bellagio in Las Vegas for the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic, a tournament that is steeped in the tradition of the WPT and has provided some outstanding performances in the previous 15 years of competition.
This is one of the few tournaments around that still has a $10,000 buy-in connected to it and that doesn’t have multiple Day Ones. In fact, it is a traditional tournament in every stretch of the imagination: a one buy-in freezeout, a stack of 30,000 in chips and a lengthy 90 minutes for each level of play. About the only change from the “past” is that there is a late registration period that runs for almost two DAYS of the tournament. Registration will not be closed until the ninth level of play on Day Two, which Bellagio officials predict will be around 5:15PM (Vegas Time) on Tuesday afternoon (there’s another thing that the players like about the Bellagio events – they begin at noon, they play for five levels and are done by a decent hour in the evening rather than playing all night).
The WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic was where a burgeoning poker world first heard the name Gus Hansen as he won the inaugural tournament in 2002 (back then it was held in May instead of its now-traditional December date). In what would be the first of two of his WPT titles that inaugural season, Hansen bested a field that would include future Poker Hall of Famers John Juanda and Scotty Nguyen and “should be” Hall of Famers in Freddy Deeb and John Hennigan. From there, the Five Diamond World Poker Classic became one of the premiere events in tournament poker, not just on the WPT trail.
Hansen nearly repeated as champion the following year, but Paul Phillips kept him from the prize and took down the first million-dollar payout in Five Diamond World Poker Classic history. Daniel Negreanu followed up his first WPT win at the Borgata in Atlantic City with winning this event in 2004 (the first year it was a $15,000 buy in tournament) and in 2006 the tournament was named in honor of the legendary Doyle Brunson (becoming the “Doyle Brunson North American Poker Classic” for a spell), which was won by former World Champion Joe Hachem in taking the first two million-dollar prize in the tournament’s rich history.
In 2007, the largest payout ever in WPT history took place with the Five Diamond World Poker Classic (then known as the Doyle Brunson Classic). A total of 626 players ponied up the $15K to step to the felt and Eugene Katchalov, with the late David “Devilfish” Ulliott and a young Ryan Daut at the final table unable to stop him, picked up the largest check ever in WPT history. His $2,482,605 first place payday is to this date the largest for a WPT Main Event in the 15-year history of the tour.
Following that high-water mark, however, the Five Diamond World Poker Classic saw the downward trend in the player numbers. Due to legislation in the States of America prohibiting financing online poker accounts and the resulting pullout of online poker rooms from the country, the 2007 event saw 497 players come to the tables. Through tinkering with the buy in amount and other amenities, the numbers have been rebuilt since then to the point that last year’s event drew in 639 players (more than the best year ever in 2007). The $10,000 buy-in, however, didn’t create as large a prize pool, a point that the defending champion of the tournament, Kevin Eyster (who won $1,587,382 in defeating Bill Jennings heads up), isn’t too concerned about.
Several players are already on the ground in Las Vegas and are ready for the Five Diamond to begin. Cate Hall, who finished in fifth place in this tournament last year, will be looking to go just a bit deeper in her quest for WPT glory. Ryan Laplante has already chopped up one of the preliminary events on the schedule and Cliff Josephy and Blake Bohn are in the building. They are expected to be amongst a field that should be just as large as 2015 if not slightly surpassing that number as there isn’t another major tournament in this time span (the final European Poker Tour date in Prague, the Czech Republic doesn’t start until December 8 and the Main Event doesn’t start until December 13).
Action will begin at noon on Monday and play over the next five days. By Saturday, the final six will square off to decide the title and who gets a bit of a gift in a million-plus payday as the champion of the latest tournament on the WPT.