This afternoon, the WSOP announced that the top 20 players receiving votes for their Tournament of Champions. The list is full of players (along with votes received) known by the casual poker player around the peak of the poker boom, circa 2005:
1. PHIL IVEY 16,267
2 DANIEL NEGREANU 16,239
3. DOYLE BRUNSON 13,796
4. PHIL HELLMUTH 12,673
5. CHRIS FERGUSON 11,585
6. ALLEN CUNNINGHAM 10,486
7. JOHNNY CHAN 10,434
8. SCOTTY NGUYEN 9,834
9. BARRY GREENSTEIN 9,806
10. JOHN JUANDA 8,835
11. ERIK SEIDEL 8,802
12. JENNIFER HARMAN 8,206
13. HUCK SEED 8,180
14. DAN HARRINGTON 7,342
15. T.J. CLOUTIER 6,281
16. SAMMY FARHA 6,085
17. HOWARD LEDERER 5,596
18. GREG RAYMER 5,404
19. JOE HACHEM 5,272
20. ANTONIO ESFANDIARI 5,129
These 20 will join Annie Duke, Mike Sexton, Mike Matusow, Joe Cada, Barry Shulman, WSOP Academy qualifier Bertrand \”ElkY\” Grospellier and WSOP.com online qualifier Andrew Barton on June 27th. In a change from the original schedule, the field will play four levels on the 27th, then play an additional four levels the following day. The remaining players will return on July 4th to play down to a winner with the final table of nine sharing in the $1,000,000 prize pool. The full press release is available here.