Main Event Begins Friday

The main event of the 2007 Series in Las Vegas, will open with four Day 1’s instead of the original three days. The 2007 Series $10,000 buy-in poker tournament has an added Day 1 because of the expected large field of players from online qualifiers. Last year there were 8,773 players and first prize paid out about $12 million. Main event officials have also added a second Day 2 to the schedule.

The field will have been whittled down to 36 players by Day 5 on July 14 and Day 6 gets the field down to the final table of 9 players. July 16 is expected to be a rest day and the final table of the main event is scheduled to begin at noon pacific time on July 17th. All of the action takes place at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

It was expected that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) that passed in the US last year would decrease the number of players but so far that has not been the case. In the first 44 poker game events of in this year's Series, there were more than 38,000 poker players taking part in the many tournaments. That is up from last year’s 31,000.

In other poker news, Las Vegas poker pro Freddy Deeb won $2.3 million in the prestigious $50,000 buy-in HORSE event. It was the fifth-biggest purse in tournament history.  Many professional poker players consider the HORSE event the true world championship of poker. The poker game of Horse involves Hold'em, Omaha, Razz, Stud and Eight or Better. Deeb outlasted a field of 148 players to win the title. French poker pro Bruno Fitoussi finished second and took home almost $1.3 Million. John Hanson took third place and a little more than $850,000.