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August 10th 2006
WSOP Championship: Some background on the final table
With the final table of the 2006 WSOP Championship less than 24 hours away the nine finalists are guaranteed a $1.5 million payday and the fame that comes with repeated showings on ESPN. Here’s a bit about those soon-to-be-household names.
Dan Nassif – shortstacked with $2.6 million
The 33-year-old advertising sales executive has taken a vacation to play in the World Series. He played last year and was knocked out on the first day when his tens ran into AK and the flop brought a King. This year, it's been a different story and the St Louis, Missouri, resident has had to extend his vacation to keep his seat here in the Amazon Room.
Michael Binger – second shortstack with $3.14 million
Michael has a Ph.D. in particle physics from Stanford University and has been earning a living by playing poker for the last five or six years. He's been high on the chip counts since Day 1 at this year’s WSOP main-event.
He’s from Atherton, California, near San Francisco and is a PokerStars.com qualifier. Last year he played four events in the World Series, but didn't cash. This year he played three and didn't cash, but then made a final table two weeks ago in the $1,500 No-Limit and won almost $100,000.
Rhett Butler - $4.815 million
No information available for the man they are saying has “Gone with the Wind”
Doug Kim - $6.77 million
Doug is a bit of an enigma in this field of 100 players. Having recently graduated from Duke University with a degree in Economics, Doug starts work for a financial consulting firm in Manhattan in December. His friend Jason Strasser regularly plays high-limit poker and has cashed a number of times in this WSOP, but Doug is more like the rest of us. He regularly plays $1/$2 No Limit, and both players were involved in a regular home game at Duke. "It started as a $1/1 NLHE game with a $100 buy-in," said Doug, "but most of the time it would quickly escalate as the night went on. We'd have different people drop in as well, football players, others. It was always a very tough game, with a ton of trash talking." Doug qualified late on PokerStars.com for his seat in the Main Event. "I spent a lot trying to get in, then grabbed a seat on the 23rd. I didn't really have any expectations coming into the tournament."
Paul Wasika - $7.970 million
No information available
Erik Friberg - $9.605 million
Erik is from Stockholm in Sweden and began playing poker when he was still in school. He played regular home games with his friends but quickly outgrew the competition and so advanced to online poker at Paradise Poker. In 2004, Erik quit university and began playing No-Limit poker full time. He is yet another PokerStars.com qualifier.
Richard Lee - $11.820 million
No information available
Allen Cunningham - $17.770 million
The 1999 “Best All-Around Player” is a former civil engineering student who began playing poker aged just 12 years old at which time he realised he was “vastly superior” to his parents and sister.
He has already won 4 WSOP bracelets and a couple of WPT events as well as numerous other tournaments. The Full Tilt pro already has $4.5 million in tournament earnings to his name, and will be adding at least another $1.5 million to that total on Thursday.
Jamie Gold - $25.650 million
Gold is a Los Angeles, California, based television producer who started playing cards while growing up in a competitive household with his poker-playing mother and grandfather. His grandmother incidentally was a gin rummy champion.
Having obtained his bachelor's degree from the University of New York at Albany, where he graduated with honours, he moved to California in 1991to study entertainment law at UCLA.
Jamie is being sweated at this tournament by two time champion Johnny Chan, who helped teach Gold how to play poker while the two were working on a film together.
Submitted: 10/08/2006 07:39:21
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