WSOP 2006

1. THE BOY WONDER

When we came up with the idea of doing the Top 10 stories from the WSOP we knew what the number one spot would be. With the biggest field ever and a first prize of $12m up for grabs, the winner of the Main Event was a shoe-in. Right? Wrong. Jeff Madsen, who only turned 21 a few weeks before the start of the tournament was the star of the show, with two gold bracelets and two third place finishes, giving him a cool $1.5m and a sponsorship deal with Full Tilt. At least he crashed out of the Main Event before HillyTheFish, which means he’d have no chance in our office games. Not that he’d mind losing as he’s one of the nicest blokes you could meet.

Daniel Negreanu was left with barely a chip and a chair by Madsen at the final table of the Omaha High-Low event. But most remarkably, against all the odds, he beat top pro Eric Lindgren to win his second WSOP title. Jeff also relegated top Brit player Julian Gardner into third place on the way to winning his first bracelet.

2. ALWAYS BELIEVE IN YOUR SOUL…

It took seven days, 15 hours and 31 minutes of solid poker for Jamie Gold to win this year’s Main Event. Talk around the Rio was that Gold had a run of cards the likes of which ‘has never been seen before’. Still, he was chip leader from Day 4, and he still played supreme poker. His winnings before the Main Event? $92,000. Now? He’s the single biggest winner in poker history.

3. CHARITY CASES

It started with Barry Greenstein. Then Mike Sexton got in on the act when he donated half his TOC winnings to charity. Now David Einhorn, who won $659,730 at this year’s WSOP Main Event, is the latest poker philanthropist having donated ALL his winnings to the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. He’s also proof that poker players aren’t the degenerates some portray us as.

4. ALL-OUT

Every player in this year’s WSOP (except, strangely but thankfully, HillyTheFish) got an all-in button to use instead of pushing unwieldy stacks of chips in. One player put his on top of his stack of chips on Day 1, nudged them with a hand in play and the button rolled off and over the line. He protested but the all-in was official and he lost 30,000 chips – around half his stack.

5. BRITPOK

We know the word is never going to catch on, but despite a miserable start for the Brits we ended up with two gold bracelets courtesy of John Gale in the Pot- Limit Hold’em event and then Pramesh Bansi in the $1,000 No- Limit Hold’em tournament. The latter is a well-known player in the Grosvenor Victoria and the Gutshot. See what he made of his $230,209 in our coming interview.

6. THE AMBASSADOR

He’s spent the past year as the public face of poker and it’s a role he’s excelled at. It’s hard to believe anyone will fill his shoes, and during this year’s event he acted with the same grace and humility that have won over every single person in the poker community. Except HillyTheFish, who spent two hours donating chips to him on the TV table towards the end of the first day.

7. HEADS-UP WORLD RECORD

8,773 players in the Main Event went for 15 hours on Day 1 and moaned like little girls. London’s Gutshot set themselves up outside the tournament room and showed them how it’s done. Ron Fanelli played heads-up continuously for 74 hours, beating the old record by nearly two hours. He played hundreds of games with top pros like Negreanu and looked a right old state come the end.

8. THE FISH HAS GUTS

Hill: ‘I’m playing tight, there’s no need to make a move early doors.’ Woods: ‘Don’t push too much on top pair, top kicker.’ But before the words ‘Shuffle up and deal’ have dispersed Hill’s calling a re-raise on the first hand and calling down two more 600 chip bets until both players check the river. The Fish shows A-Q, for top pair, top kicker and his friend shows a pair of Twos. Phew!

9. NO BAD BEATS PLEASE

We’re interviewing Doyle Brunson when Mike Caro bursts in after busting out of the Main Event. Doyle: ‘Hey Mike, what happened?’ Mike’s face lights up when he realises he’s got a captive audience for his bad beat story. ‘Well the flop came, blah, blah…’ For an old man, Doyle can still run: ‘I ain’t listening to no bad beat story.’ And that was the last we saw of him.

10. UNCOVERED

Late one night, Pramesh Bansi tells Paul ‘Action Jack’ Jackson he’s made it to the final table of the $1,000 No-Limit and should he wear a branded UncoverPoker. com shirt (Jackson and Connor Tate’s site that he qualified through)? Paul considers the long walk back to his hotel and decides he can’t face it. Inevitably, Praz wins and is featured worldwide with the logo of…Adidas!