This year's heads-up clash will take place in the shadow of almost $9 million in cash
After 12 days of intense drama at the Rio Casino, the 2010 WSOP Main Event has reached it's zenith - nine players each dreaming of the $8,944,138 first prize, and of course a place in history alongside some of poker's (not-so) greats.
The spotlight falls on one man
Once again, the final table welcomes a host of names largely unfamiliar even to those of us with an unhealthy interest in all things poker. Thank god then for at least one man on whom the weight of the poker world's expectations rest - Michael 'The Grinder' Mizrachi. The 29-year old American, one of four well-known poker playing brothers, won the $50,000 buy-in Poker Player's Championship event at the beginning of the 2010 WSOP for an eye-popping $1,559,046. That was his first bracelet, in an elite field of just 116 players testing their all-round skills across eight varieties of poker. His attempt at a second bracelet comes in a 7,319-runner event known for its everyman appeal. Winning the Main Event is a remarkable accolade, but paired with the Player's Championship, it would go down as a legendary achievement.
Yet Mizrachi's presence aside, what else have we to look forward to? In previous years, the tournament has never failed to uncover an amateur - frequently caricatured and often with an improbably huge stack - who defied mind-bending odds to reach the final table and keep alive his hopes of continuing the Moneymaker lineage.
Where, oh where is our Darvin Moon?
Sadly this year, with eight pros and one skilled amateur - who cashes in the Main Event for the second consecutive year - we have been denied our 'guy next door' to cheer on. No Jerry, Jamie, Darvin or Dennis.
Understandably, playing deep stacked tournament poker all day for eight days, against some of the best in the world during the latter stages, is one hell of a mountain to climb. Can we always expect Average Joe to make an appearance on the biggest stage in poker? Probably not. But it's with some sorrow, despite the superstar in it's midst, that I look over this year's final nine, lacking as it does a true representative of the masses.
The death of diversity
We're left with nine players between 21 and 37 years of age, all male, mostly pros, all but one from the US or Canada, and I ask myself this: is the Moneymaker dream still alive?
Will a member of the fairer sex ever win the Main Event? No woman has reached the final table in the last fifteen years, yet alone found herself heads-up.
Despite the assertions in recent times that 'no pro will ever win the Main Event again' and that 'the Main Event is just another huge donkament', are amateurs simply drawing dread? Can mere poker mortals - I count myself as one - really succeed in a 13-day poker tournament now flooded with anonymous bright young things who have stealthily developed their armoury since the Year Moneymaker? Only time will tell...
Am I talking total tosh? Is the Big Dance still a fishfest destined to be won by a fish? Let me know what you think below...