As part of the World Poker Tour, the 2007 World Poker Open drew quite a crowd, especially the main event. While not trying to represent the World Series of Poker levels, the field of 294 was very respectable, especially considering they all had to pay $10,000 + $300 in order to play
The final day of this four day event took place on January 25th, with the nearly three hundred players whittled down to six. Among those not making the final table were plenty of well known poker names, including Vanessa Rousso, Mark Seif, Cyndy Violette, Phil Ivey and Phil Hellmuth. The Gold Strike Casino, where the action took place, was abuzz, however, with J C Tran and Daniel Negreanu himself being among the final table players. The other four players were Kido Pham from Dallas, TX, Gary Kainer from Bay City, TX, Brian Sumner from Smyrna, TN, and Young Cho from Enid, OK, all of whom were in the running for the lion's share of the $2,812,000 prize pool.
27 players cashed in this event, with the lowest dollar figure ringing in at a healthy $16,961. The final table players were looking at a payday from about fifty thousand all the way up to over nine hundred thousand - needless to say, no one was in a hurry to leave. In the end it came up to very popular Daniel Negreanu and relative unknown from Tennessee, Brian Sumner. Brian was no slouch, making a living playing online poker, but this was one of his first major events, and Negreanu was by far the veteran. In the end, though, the new kid on the block took down the event and $913,986.
Here are the final table results:
PlacePlayerPrize1Brian Sumner$913,986 + $25,500 entry to the WPT Season 5 Championship2Daniel Negreanu$502,6913Young Cho$257,0584Gary Kainer$199,9345Kido Pham$171,3726J C Tran$142,810
