Five Diamond World Poker Classic
WPT Season 6

Doyle Brunson Classic Championship Event -- Day 1A
After a short moment of observation for the loss of one of the biggest names in poker which was Chip Reese, this tournament began with 277 players at the tables. Many there were the top names in the game, including Lyle Berman who is the WPT Chairman of the Board. But today was all about the action as bustouts took place. Tuan Le gained lots of chips doubling him up after his pocket A's sent another player home who had pocket Q's. Unfortunately, the devil came for his due and Tuan Le busted out in the 4th level of play. He was followed by Paul Wasicka, online star player Sorel Mizzi, Bill Elder, Markus Lehmann who won the WPT Spanish Championship in Barcelona, Spain, Kevin Saul, J.J. Liu, David Pham and David Singer.

The 87 players who went out on Day 1A were big names at the tables, but the ones who remain will still make things very tough in the days ahead. Some who will continue include Liz Lieu with 80,125 chips, Todd Brunson 74,225, Josh Arieh 69,325, Raymond David 66,550, Huck Seed 61,200, WPT Champion Martin De Knijff 52,400, Rhynie Campbell 51,450 and Alan Goehring with 38,000. At the end of the day there were 190 players remaining. Here are the top 6 for Day 1A with chip counts:

1. John Hennigan -- 188,700 chips
2. John Gale -- 126,100 chips
3. Hoyt Corkins -- 114,000 chips
4. Erik Seidel -- 108,475 chips
5. Ralph Perry -- 102,000 chips
6. Greg Mueller -- 98,625 chips

Doyle Brunson Classic Championship Event -- Day 1B
This event turned out to be larger than anyone though after the player count revealed that 664 paid $15K each to be at the tables. And with an incredible cash pool of $9,661,200 created for the top 100, it is the highest for any poker event outside of the WSOP Main Event and the WPT championship tournament held at the Bellagio. Two players will leave as instant millionaires with the first place winner taking home $2,484,605 and second place seeing $1,252,640 for their effort. Here is the final table payout structure:

1. $2,484,605
2. $1,252,640
3. $674,500
4. $433,675
5. $289,070
6. $192,715

1. Phil Ivey -- 223,025 chips
2. John Hennigan -- 188,700 chips
3. Raymond Henson -- 150,000 chips
4. Keith Tilston -- 129,200 chips
5. James Mordue -- 126,875 chips
6. John Gale -- 125,100 chips

Doyle Brunson Classic Championship Event -- Day 2
Today was brutal as the field was whittled down by about 300 which had many top pros and online players on the sidelines as casualties. Action began today around 12:30 pm PST and Hasan Habib left in the first 30 minutes. Following him were Johnny Chan, Patrick Antonius, Phil Hellmuth Jr., 2007 WSOP Main Event champion Jerry Yang, Jennifer Harman, Mike Matusow, Chad Brown, T.J. Cloutier, Mark Seif, WPT Board Chairman Lyle Berman and Josh Arieh when his pocket K's lost out to another players set of Queens. Even Doyle Brunson himself could not stand up to this onslaught of tough players and busted out early in the day.

Those who had a good day were Phil Ivey who is chip leader for the second day in a row and Lee Markholt. Daniel Negreanu also made an excellent showing at the tables. By the time everything stopped for the day at 9:30 pm PST, there were 152 players left in the field.

1. Phil Ivey -- 460,700 chips
2. Lee Markholt -- 442,500 chips
3. James Mordue -- 348,000 chips
4. Nenad Medic -- 330,500 chips
5. Erick Lindgren -- 304,600 chips
6. Mikael Thuritz -- 302,800 chips

Doyle Brunson Classic Championship Event -- Day 3
The excitement continues as the bubble will burst with the money flowing to the top 100 finishers in this tournament. The player who goes home in 100th place will take home $28,950 which is a good amount more than they paid to get into this tournament. Unfortunately one of the first to go was WPT commentator Mike Sexton in his only appearance in an active WPT tournament where he is commentating. Others who went to the rail were Liz Lieu, Nam Le, Hevad Khan, Amir Vahedi and Shannon Shorr. Harry Demetriou had his pocket K's crushed by Ray Davis with pocket A's, sending Harry to the sidelines for a break from playing. Dominate force Phil Ivey just could not hold onto the chips as they slowly fell through his fingertips during todays action. Ivey busted out in 103rd place when his outside straight draw lost to the pocket K's of Hoyt Corkins, just shy of the money.

When the money was reached, a lot of eliminations happened with the next 50 receiving the same amount of money which is $28,950. At that point Chau Giang busted in 97th, Ted Lawson 95th, James Van Alstyne 92nd, Joe Sebok 86th, Farzad Bonyadi 85th, Lee Markholt 79th, Nenad Medic 75th and Humberto Brenes 51st. The players bagged their chips when the 44th elimination took place. Action will continue at noon tomorrow.

1. Jordan Rich -- 1,238,000 chips
2. Matthew Casterella -- 1,184,000 chips
3. Gus Hansen -- 1,128,000 chips
4. Bill Kontaratos -- 1,119,000 chips
5. Raymond Davis -- 1,014,000 chips
6. Daniel Negreanu -- 884,000 chips

Doyle Brunson Classic Championship Event -- Day 4
Of the 44 players who came to the tables at the beginning of play, many of them had either 1 to 3 WPT titles to their credit. This resulted in intense action at the tables. Some of the first to go were Marcel Luske, Daniel Alaei, Jose Rosenkrantz and Hoyt Corkins. Daniel Negreanu had a kick butt day going over the 2 million mark in chips, so he didn't have time to see the crowd of top names going to the rail. David "Devilfish" Ulliott also let the poker world know why he should always be respected today as well, delivering well executed play to get over 1.5 million in his stack.

By the end of the day, David Baker, Quinn Do, Max Pescatori, Gus Hansen and Huck Seed were gone from the tournament. There were 18 left to continue to the next round. Tomorrow these players will continue down to the televised 6 for the final table. Here are the top players and their chip counts:

1. Daniel Negreanu -- 2,279,000 chips
2. Matthew Casterella -- 1,686,000 chips
3. Jordan Rich -- 1,640,000 chips
4. David "Devilfish" Ulliott -- 1,579,000 chips
5. Eric Lindgren -- 1,571,000 chips
6. John Monnette -- 1,357,000 chips

Doyle Brunson Classic Championship Event -- Day 5
A lot happened today at the tables, but when you have the level of top players involved in the action as this tournament does nothing less should be expected. Daniel Negreanu went in as chip leader and started losing his chips as with one particular big hand where he called two other players all-in move with pocket K's. Unfortunately another player had pocket A's and the board helped no one, leaving a big dent in Daniel's stack, eventually to bust out in 14th place. Eric Lindgren lost the remainder of his chips when his all-in with pocket 8's lost out to the set of 7's belonging to Matthew Casterella, finishing in 10th. Matthew Casterella also sent Jimmy Tran to the rail in 8th place with a pair of J's.

Eugene Katchalov was the player of the day as he rocketed from a Day 4 chip stack of 286,000 to a whopping 8,360,000 chips! He doubled up twice, first against Ryan Daut and again with Matthew Casterella. The final table was made after Eugene eliminated Raymond Davis with a pair of Aces, pushing Eugene over the 8 million chip mark. Here are the final table players:

1. Eugene Katchalov -- 8,360,000 chips
2. Jordan Rich -- 6,585,000 chips
3. David "Devilfish" Ulliott -- 1,900,000 chips
4. Ted Kearly -- 1,620,000 chips
5. Kenneth Rosen -- 1,135,000 chips
6. Ryan Daut -- 330,000 chips

Doyle Brunson Classic Championship Event -- Final Table
The last 6 players took their seats at 4 pm. On the first hand, short stacked Ryan Daut pushed everything to the middle with A J. Ryan left in 6th place after losing to Ted Kearly who had pocket 8's on his side. Jordan Rich continued to attack the chip leader to grow his stack, but the strategy backfired and he left in 5th place when his pocket J's lost to Katchalov's pocket A's. Just three hands later, Kenneth Rosen went all in with Ad 2d and also lost to Katchalov who ended up with two pair (10's/5's), taking home a six figure check for 4th place. And amazingly, a few hands later David Ulliott moved in 2 million chips preflop with A 10 to be called by Katchalov who held A J. No cards came to the rescue of Ulliott who busted in 3rd place and received over 600K US for his efforts.

By this time heads up began, Katchalov held so many chips he could hardly see the table. Katchalov had 16,755,000 chips in his stack and Kearly had 3,175,000 chips in his. Victory came quickly for Eugene. The winning hand for Katchalov came when Kearly moved all-in holding K J with 10 6 3 on the table and was called by Katchalov who had J 10. Turn card was a J and the river card a 2. So with two pair Eugene Katchalov became the last WPT champion of 2007. It took only 53 hands for the entire final table which will be fun to watch when it is broadcast by GSN in the future.

1. Eugene Katchalov -- $2,484,605
2. Ted Kearly -- $1,252,640
3. David "Devilfish" Ulliott -- $674,500
4. Kenneth Rosen -- $433,675
5. Jordan Rich -- $289,070
6. Ryan Daut -- $192,715