Doyle Brunson In Action At $50,000 Poker Players Championship

Poker legend Doyle Brunson has made his first appearance of the 2013 WSOP, after entering the highest-stakes mixed games event of the Series known as the $50,000 Poker Players Championship.
Despite the 79 year-old withdrawing from the WSOP over the past few years, Brunson has a particular fondness for the 8-game format event, which originally started out as the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E., and is held in high regard by poker professionals as a test of all-round poker ability.
The first winner of the $50k buy-in tournament was Chip Reese back in 2006, and honouring the now departed poker legend, winners of the event receive the ‘David “Chip” Reese Award,’ in addition to a WSOP bracelet.
Commenting on his decision to enter the $50,000 Poker Players Championship, Doyle Brunson stated: “I prefer this one over any other tournament. It’s five days, it’s a lot of money. It’s good players. And it’s Chip Reese’s tournament.”
Not surprisingly, the event always attracts the cream of the poker fraternity, and amongst the 118 players joining Brunson at the Rio Casino was such pros as Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Sexton, Mike Matusow, John Juanda and 2-times winner Michael Mizrachi. After the first day of action, Jonathan Duhamel leads the field, followed by Jason Mercier and Justin Smith, while Johnny Chan and Vanessa Selbst have already been eliminated, and Phil Ivey is on a short-stack and precariously close to exiting, too.
Meanwhile, Doyle Brunson has had a good start and is currently in 12th place. He also stands to win $800,000 of prop bets (or lose $140,000) if he cashes in at the event, and good-heartedly tweeted earlier;
“These young guys evidently think I can’t compete. We will see. If I go deep there will be lots of blood on the carpet.”