2006 World Series of Poker

2006 World Series of Poker
Location	Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada
Dates	June 26 – August 10
Champion
Jamie Gold
←  2005 2007  →

The 2006 WSOP Championship bracelet

The 2006 World Series of Poker (WSOP) began on June 25, 2006, with satellite events, with regular play commencing on June 26 with the annual Casino Employee event and the Tournament of Champions held on June 28 and 29. Forty more events, in various disciplines including Omaha, seven-card stud and razz, plus ladies' and senior tournaments, led up to the 10,000 US$ no-limit Texas hold 'em main event starting July 28 and running through the final table on August 10.

All events were held at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, which marked the first time that a casino other than Binion's Horseshoe (now "Binion's") hosted the final table of the main event. Six days reserved for the first two rounds of play for the main event were established by Harrah's Entertainment, which has run the annual event since its purchase from the Binion family in 2004.

The first prize in the main event was $12 million (US$), at that time the richest prize for the winner of any sports or television event in history. The top 12 players became millionaires. ^[1] The record prize was surpassed at the 2012 WSOP, when the winner of the $1 million buy-in Big One for One Drop, Antonio Esfandiari, received a first-place prize of $18.3 million. ^[2]

The 2006 World Series featured a much-anticipated HORSE tournament with a $50,000 buy-in, the highest ever for a single WSOP event.

Humberto Brenes, Phil Hellmuth, Chris Ferguson, and Alex Jacob tied for the most cashes during the WSOP, with eight each. Jeff Madsen, who won two events and made two other final tables (finishing 3rd both times), was named the 2006 WSOP Player of the Year (POTY). ^[3] He barely edged Hellmuth, who also made four final tables.

Events

Main article: 2006 World Series of Poker results

Number	Event	Winner	Prize	Runner-up	–
1	$500 Casino Employees No Limit Hold'em	Chris Gros	$127,616	Bryan Devonshire	Results
2	$1,500 No Limit Hold'em	Brandon Cantu	$757,839	Phong "Mark" Ly	Results
3	$1,500 Pot Limit Hold'em	Rafe Furst	$345,984	Rocky Enciso	Results
4	$1,500 Limit Hold'em	Kianoush Abolfathi	$335,289	Eric Buchman	Results
5	$2,500 No Limit Hold'em Short Handed 6/Table	Dutch Boyd	$475,712	Joe Hachem	Results
6	$2,000 No Limit Hold'em	Mark Vos	$803,274	Nam Le	Results
7	$3,000 Limit Hold'em	Bill Chen	$343,618	Yueqi "Rich" Zhu	Results
8	$2,000 Omaha Hi-Lo (8 or better)	Jack Zwerner	$341,426	Rusty Mandap	Results
9	$5,000 No Limit Hold'em	Jeff Cabanillas	$818,546	Phil Hellmuth Jr.	Results
10	$1,500 Seven-card stud	David Williams	$163,118	John Hoang	Results
11	$1,500 No limit Hold'em	Bob Chalmers	$258,344	Tam Ho	Results
12	$5,000 Omaha Hi-Lo (8 or better)	Sam Farha	$398,560	Phil Ivey	Results
13	$2,500 Limit Hold'em	Max Pescatori	$682,389	Anthony Reategui	Results
14	$1,000 No Limit Hold'em w/multiple rebuys	Allen Cunningham	$625,830	David Rheem	Results
15	$1,000 Ladies No Limit Hold'em	Mary Jones Meyer	$236,094	Shawnee Barton	Results
16	$10,000 Pot Limit Omaha	Lee Watkinson	$655,746	Mike Guttman	Results
17	$1,000 No Limit Hold'em	Jon Friedberg	$526,185	John Phan	Results
18	$2,000 Pot Limit Hold'em	Eric Kesselman	$311,403	Hyon Kim	Results
19	$1,000 No Limit Hold'em Seniors	Clare Miller	$247,814	Mike Nargi	Results
20	$50,000 H.O.R.S.E.	David "Chip" Reese	$1,716,000	Andy Bloch	Results
21	$2,500 No Limit Hold'em Short Handed 6/Table	Bill Chen	$442,511	Nath Pizzolatto	Results
22	$2,000 No Limit Hold'em	Jeff Madsen	$660,948	Paul Sheng	Results
23	$3,000 Limit Hold'em	Ian Johns	$291,755	Jerrod Ankenman	Results
24	$3,000 Omaha Hi-Lo (8 or better)	Scott Clements	$301,175	Thor Hansen	Results
25	$2,000 No Limit Hold'em Shootout	David Pham	$240,222	Charlie Sewell	Results
26	$1,500 Pot Limit Omaha	Ralph Perry	$207,817	George Abdallah	Results
26a	$1,500 Pot Limit Omaha w/rebuys	Eric Froehlich	$299,675	Sherkhan Farnood	Results
27	$1,500 No Limit Hold'em	Mats Rahmn	$655,141	Richard Toth	Results
28	$5,000 Seven-Card Stud	Benjamin Lin	$256,620	Shawn Sheikhan	Results
29	$2,500 Pot Limit Hold'em	John Gale	$374,849	Maros Lechman	Results
30	$5,000 No Limit Hold'em Short Handed 6/Table	Jeff Madsen	$643,381	Erick Lindgren	Results
31	$2,000 No Limit Hold'em	Justin Scott	$842,262	Freddy Rouhani	Results
32	$5,000 Pot Limit Hold'em	Jason Lester	$550,746	Alan Sass	Results
33	$1,500 Razz	James Richburg	$139,576	Carlos Mortensen	Results
34	$1,000 No Limit Hold'em w/multiple rebuys	Phil Hellmuth	$631,863	Juha Helppi	Results
35	$1,000 Seven Card Stud High-Low 8/OB	Pat Poels	$172,091	Greg Dinkin	Results
36	$1,500 Limit Hold'em Shootout	Victoriano Perches	$157,338	Arnold Spee	Results
37	$1,500 No Limit Hold'em	James Gorham	$765,226	Osman Kibar	Results
38	$5,000 No-Limit 2–7 Draw Lowball w/rebuys	Daniel Alaei	$430,698	David Williams	Results
39	$10,000 No Limit Hold'em Championship	Jamie Gold	$12,000,000	Paul Wasicka	Results
40	$1,000 No-Limit Hold'em	Praz Bansi	$230,209	Anh Lu	Results
41	$1,500 No-Limit Hold'em	Paul Kobel	$316,144	Tyler Andrews	Results
42	$1,500 No-Limit Hold'em	Jim Mitchell	$153,173	Stuart Fox	Results
43	$1,500 No-Limit Hold'em	Kevin Nathan	$171,987	J. C. Tran	Results
44	$1,500 No-Limit Hold'em	Kevin Cover	$196,968	Joe Brandenburg	Results
45	$1,500 No-Limit Hold'em	Anders Henriksson	$202,291	Maureen Feduniak	Results

Main Event

The 2006 Main Event (event #39) remains the largest tournament in poker history by prize pool with a total prize pool of $82,512,162. ^[4] The tournament, like every WSOP Main Event, is a $10,000 No-Limit Texas Hold'em event. Due to the 8,773-player field, there were four separate starting days (1A-1D), each playing down to 800 people. They were later combined into one other set of separate days (2A and 2B) before becoming one whole group. The field was whittled down to 9 players on August 8, and Jamie Gold was crowned World Champion on August 10. The final table of the "Main Event" was offered live on Pay-Per-View, but unlike ESPN telecasts, viewers at home could not see the hole cards of the players unless the player turned their cards over.

Along with the usual $10,000 chip stacks, a new feature to the WSOP was the "All-In" button. Tournament directors have informed the participants that the coin could be used in lieu of pushing all of one's chips into the pot.

The beige $50,000 chips that were used in 2005 were not used in 2006. Instead, tangerine and yellow $25,000 chips, in the design of the current $25 chips, were used. And for the first time in World Series of Poker History, a $100,000 chip was introduced on day 7. The chips were mint green with black edge spots in the design of the current yellow/black $1,000 chip.

Final table

Name	Number of chips (percentage of total)	WSOP Bracelets*	WSOP Cashes*	WSOP Earnings*
Jamie Gold	25,650,000 (28.5%)	0	0	0
Allen Cunningham	17,770,000 (19.7%)	4	28	$2,371,769
Richard Lee	11,820,000 (13.1%)	0	0	0
Erik Friberg	9,605,000 (10.7%)	0	0	0
Paul Wasicka	7,970,000 (8.8%)	0	2	$64,437
Doug Kim	6,770,000 (7.5%)	0	0	0
Rhett Butler	4,815,000 (5.3%)	0	0	0
Michael Binger	3,140,000 (3.5%)	0	1	$101,570
Dan Nassif	2,600,000 (2.9%)	0	0	0

*Career statistics prior to the beginning of the 2006 Main Event.

Final table results

Place	Name	Prize
1st	Jamie Gold	$12,000,000
2nd	Paul Wasicka	$6,102,499
3rd	Michael Binger	$4,123,310
4th	Allen Cunningham	$3,628,513
5th	Rhett Butler	$3,216,182
6th	Richard Lee	$2,803,851
7th	Douglas Kim	$2,391,520
8th	Erik Friberg	$1,979,189
9th	Dan Nassif	$1,566,858

Other high finishes

NB: This list is restricted to top 100 finishers with an existing Wikipedia entry.

Place	Name	Prize
10th	Fred Goldberg	$1,154,527
13th	William Thorson	$907,128
17th	Jeff Lisandro	$659,730
18th	David Einhorn	$659,730
20th	Prahlad Friedman	$494,797
24th	Eric Lynch	$494,797
29th	Mitch Schock	$329,865
36th	Humberto Brenes	$329,865
88th	Annie Duke	$51,129

Performance of past World Champions

• Day 1: Dan Harrington, ^[5] Phil Hellmuth, ^[6] Doyle Brunson, ^[7] Bobby Baldwin, ^[8] Chris Moneymaker, ^[9] Johnny Chan, ^[10] "Amarillo Slim" Preston ^[11]
• Day 2: Berry Johnston, ^[12] Scotty Nguyen, ^[13] Huck Seed, ^[14] Greg Raymer, ^[14] Robert Varkonyi ^[14]
• Day 3: Carlos Mortensen , ^[15] Chris Ferguson, ^[16]
• Day 4: Tom McEvoy, ^[17] Joe Hachem ^[17]

Trivia

• Celebrity players featured in the Main Event included Hank Azaria, ^[18] Paul Azinger, ^[19] Charles Barkley, Richard Brodie, Dean Cain, ^[20] Tony Cascarino, ^[21] Denny Crum, ^[22] Steve Davis, ^[23] Shannon Elizabeth, ^[24] Salvatore (Sully) Erna, ^[25] James Garner, ^[26] Brad Garrett, ^[27] Michael Greco, ^[28] Ron Jeremy, ^[29] Joanna Krupa, ^[30] Lennox Lewis, ^[31] Matthew Lillard, ^[32] Norm Macdonald, ^[33] Tobey Maguire, ^[34] Mekhi Phifer, ^[35] Laura Prepon, ^[36] Antonio Tarver, ^[37] Wil Wheaton, ^[38] and Jimmy White. ^[39] Both Davis and Erna finished in the money, coming in 579th and 713th places respectively. ^{[40] [41]}

Controversy

Event 5

When play resumed during day 2 of this event, a table with players, Daniel Negreanu, Gavin Smith, and Kathy Liebert were given extra chips after tournament officials had misplaced Mirza Nagji's chips in the wrong seat. Unknowingly, the rest of the players assumed that this stack was someone else's who was late and blinded off the stack. Eventually a player noticed that the stack was Mirza Nagji's chips, who by that time had been given replacement chips. Players estimate that out of the extra 120,000 in chips that were put into play, around 10,000–11,000 in chips had already been blinded off from the empty stack. ^{[42] [43] [44]}

Event 20

Many poker players who entered into the HORSE event discovered that the cards they were playing with were marked or easily markable. Andy Bloch was assessed a 10‑minute penalty for crumpling a card when a dealer refused to replace the deck after the new deck that came in was rife with markings. When asked for comment, WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack said, "I hadn't heard anything about the cards being marked until today. I am looking into getting more fresh setups and I am definitely working on solving the problem." ^{[44] [45]}

Event 25

During Event 25, the $2,000 NL Hold 'em Shootout, the structure was changed mid-tournament from a full table into a 6-handed table event. Harry Demetriou, who had been playing in the event, objected to the change in format citing that a shootout should be 9, 10 or 11 handed, yelling about the unfair change in structure. Harry was eventually ejected from the tournament and was later refunded his money. ^[46] Daniel Negreanu missed the event completely because he assumed that the event would be a full table and he would be able to come into the tournament a little bit later after sleeping in. However, by the time he showed up David Singer had won his table after blinding off Negreanu's stack. ^[47]

See also

• 2006 World Series of Poker Results
• World Series of Poker circuit events
• World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions

References

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External links

• Tournament results at the World Series of Poker