Russ Hamilton Chris Ferguson among ?-marks for Binion Cup
One of the first “big” WSOP events will be the special, invitational Champions tourney … a non-bracelet freeroll for all previous main event champions, which will be one of only four televised ESPN events. This made-for-TV No-Limit Hold’em brouhaha — where players are competing for a shiny trophy and a red Corvette — should give the old-dog pros a chance to remind the 21st century WSOP millionaires who’s really boss … and the Varkonyis and Golds and Yangs a chance to say, “Hey, I didn’t just get lucky, Doyle Biznatch!”
27 players are eligible … and almost all have pre-registered. Bobby Baldwin ’78 has RSVP’d in the negative. But there’s one interesting name on the list of non-confirmeds* — well actually there’re five, but one of these is not like the others … in fact, as a member of the WSOP PAC, he’s probably on Jeffrey Pollack’s speed dial:
Mansour Maltoubi ’90
Hamid Dastmalchi ’92
Russ Hamilton ’94
Noel Furlong ’99
Chris Ferguson ’00
None of these are holdouts, from what we’re hearing … just MIA. (Though we’re not so sure the WSOP is looking that hard for Russ, because they could always give his invitation to Layne Flack.)
Wicked Chops is on the hunt for them here.
Kevin Mathers says:
May 18th, 2009 at 5:29pm
Jeffrey Pollack, in an interview with Gary Wise a few weeks ago, said that Russ would not be participating in any WSOP tournament this year. Also, there’s only 25 players eligible, Brunson and Chan are counted twice.
DanM says:
May 18th, 2009 at 5:35pm
Hmm, Wicked Chops is reporting the same thing about Hamilton … I’m just curious how official the snub is.
And are you sure about 25 vs. 27? I’m not one to question KevMath’s fact-checking, but I’m almost willing to place a wager on it …
Kevin Mathers says:
May 18th, 2009 at 5:39pm
Count them yourself Dan, but don’t count Brunson and Chan twice.
Brunson, Slim, Baldwin, McEvoy, Johnston, Chan, Hellmuth, Matloubi, Daugherty, Dastmalchi, Bechtel, Hamilton, Harrington, Seed, S. Nguyen, Furlong, Ferguson, Mortensen, Varkonyi, Moneymaker, Raymer, Hachem, Gold, Yang, Eastgate
DanM says:
May 18th, 2009 at 6:29pm
Fair enough:
https://pokerati.com/2009/05/18/re-chris-ferguson-among-marks2009-binion-cup-line-up/