WSOP-Circuit National Championship: Road to the TV Final Table …

Someone will win the first bracelet of the 2011 WSOP today, before registration opens for event #1. We listed about 13 percent of the field as people who might be worth watching, just because, and three of them made it to the final table and ITM of the WSOP-freeroll championship … which I\’m not sure whether or not qualifies for POY points but obviously should. You\’ll have to just believe us that the guy who woulda been my 14th pick on that list was Huy Nguyen, who ended Day 2 yesterday by banking $27,500 for 10th place.

So cards just got in the air for the first televised event of the 2011 WSOP, and of the 10s of thousands of players who had a chance to be here, three of them are from Dallas (though one has since moved to Las Vegas), and one has been part of Team Pokerati since she got a lotta chips in the 2010 WSOP ladies event.

LIVE UPDATES here.

Go La Sengphet! Also go Josh Evans! And though for a while I wasn\’t sure if I had first seen him at Jackie\’s in Dallas or maybe was just confusing him with a guy seen once at the Venetian, go Charles \”Woody\” Moore! All three of these players and the others are anything but luckboxes in a sit-n-go … they are real grinders and rounders with skill … and a win here, my contention, is a ticket to the real big leagues … as the winner of today\’s event will be known all around as a real real player, and will have the bankroll — $300k for first — to prove it for as long as they can hold as a true and successful pro.

You\’ll have to forgive any Pokerati bias toward La … Not only is Sengphet \’11 our most successful Team Pokerati player since Tom Schneider \’07, but really, she\’s just a good poker story in and of herself, with or without Pokerati:

• A 21st century rounder, almost old-school style, on the poker road with boyfriend.
• David Clark, the boyfriend, qualifies for the WSOP-Circuit National Championship, too.
• La shows she can dominate in ladies events, winning one in the same venue where she\’s playing today.
• By winning two rings to become one of only two women to qualify for the 100-player million-dollar freeroll, she can crush it in open events, too.
• She has been playing her ass off, working hard, and seeing results, making this table the next-level culmination of a climb that began with $65 four-table tournaments in Texas several years ago.
• Though not sure whether or not it has anything to do with Laotian-ness, the poker-Valentine couple celebrates victory by chowing down on crawfish

Follow along on WSOP.com (or the Pokernews iphone app, which is also pretty good for this on the road, and consider how things start to see that once the poker gods decide to do whatever they will with Woody, the first big name of the 2011 WSOP is pretty much anybody\’s game. (Though it really seems to me like La is gonna win … and I was sure not to post this until after cards went in the air, lest Pokerati mess with her head.)