2013 WSOP Sets Record Participation

The Rio Hotel and Casino has welcomed record numbers of poker players participating in the 2013 World Series of Poker. Just a few days ago 40,039 players entered bought in to events and that's just one of the records that has been broken. That will of course mean that prize money in general has gone up with many events far out doing last years equivalent. Player numbers are in fact up a massive 27% and this is a 44 year high and even the side games and cash tables available have seen huge numbers of players, and to date over $54 million has been awarded in prize money. We are at the half way stage now and one of the first big events, event #6 the Millionaire Maker became the biggest re-entry field and the largest non main event field in history with a whopping 5,044 players involved. The $1,500 buy in and the record field meant that Benny Chan took home a first place prize of $1,199,104.

Multiple Bracelets and More

Event #26 was the Seniors Event and the special Golden Eagle trophy went to Ken Lind the 68 year old from Utah, and that event was the largest single flight event in the history of the WSOP. The all time record for amounts of cashed in one single year currently stands at 11, however that could also be beaten as Dan Kelly, aka djk123 has cashed 8 times already and that includes 2 final tables. This astonishing run has shifted Kelly up to 3rd place in the race for WSOP Player of the Year. There's been many players that have become multiple bracelet winners this year too, add to their previous years wins, Cliff Josephy, Mike 'the mouth' Matusow now has 4, Mark Radoja and David Chiu now has an impressive 5 bracelets in total.

Dan Kelly having made a remarkable start, with 2 final tables already 2 his name, but there's also a few other players have made the grade where that is concerned. The English player Mathew Ashston has made 3 final tables but as yet no bracelet, and David Baker has also made 3 but again no bracelet. There's also been more Canadian winners than ever before, and we're only half way through, with the record of 6 Canadian winners being beaten by 7 so far. There's still 4 weeks to go and plenty of excitement in Vegas still to come, that's for sure.