World Series of Poker 2010 Will See Tournament of Champions

It is an interesting event that has been run in different ways through different years (and not been run at all in other years), but there is no question that the Tournament of Champions at the World Series of Poker always draws a lot of attention. Anyone can win the Main Event, but only the best of the best will emerge as the winner of the WSOP ToC.

The field for the 2010 running of the ToC will contain 20 names that will be familiar to most people that even casually follow the world of professional poker. Seven slots were chosen beforehand and include previous ToC winners like Annie Duke, Mike Matusow and Mike Sexton. Joe Cada, the winner of 2009’s Main Event will also be there and joining him will be the winner of WSOP Europe 2009 Berry Shulman. Bertrand Grospellier and Andrew Barton round out the seven pre-selected individuals, respectively the winner of the WSOP Academy tournament and the WSOP online qualifier for the United Kingdom.

Joining these seven people are 13 that were selected by a popular vote from all of the fans of poker. Starting with a field of 500 players, WSOP officials asked players to vote for their favorites and eventually lower-placed players were removed and their votes recast. Overall, more than 350,000 votes were put into the selection process with the top five placements going in order to Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth and Chris Ferguson.

Overall, the field at the 2010 ToC will be the same competitive field that it always is. Although other WSOP events can end up with final tables that do not have many stars in them because of the swings of variance and luck, the ToC is only going to contain people that are the best poker pros around or people that have made it into the event by winning a big name title such as that of the previous year’s WSOP Main Event. Therefore, it could seriously be considered the toughest 20-player field in the world of tournament poker.