This WPT event had the smallest first prize ($393,820) since March, 2004, when Phil Gordon won $360,000 in the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star back in Season II. There were quite a few first prizes smaller than this back in the first two seasons, before the poker boom really exploded.

Of course, this discussion ignores the WPT Celebrity Invitational, with a first prize of $100,000. But that’s a freeroll, so it doesn’t count.

Here’s a comparison of Carlos Mortensen’s 3 WPT titles (field size & first prize) to Gus Hansen’s 3 WPT titles:

GUS HANSEN
1. WPT Five Diamond (Bellagio, June 2002)
146 players – $555,460
2. WPT LA Poker Classic (Commerce, Feb 2003)
136 players – $507,190
3. WPT Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure (Mexican Cruise, Jan 2004)
221 players – $455,780

CARLOS MORTENSEN
1. WPT Doyle Brunson North American Championship (Bellagio, 2004)
312 players – $1,000,000
2. WPT World Championship (Bellagio, 2007)
639 players – $3,970,415
3. WPT Hollywood Poker Open (Indiana, 2010)
144 players – $393,820

As you can see, Carlos cumulatively beat 1,095 players for his 3 titles, while Gus only beat 503 — and more than half of the players Carlos beat were in the $25,000 WPT World Championship, which is one of the toughest fields of the year according to Daniel Negreanu.

Also, while this is the lowest first prize on the World Poker Tour since Season II, Carlos’s victory in the 2007 WPT World Championship gave him the biggest first prize in WPT history. So he’s been on both sides of it. All three of Gus’s victories came in the first two seasons, when prizepools were relatively low. In fact, Gus earned more for his second-place finish at the 2008 WPT World Championship ($1,714,800) than his three victories combined (a total of $1,518,430).

Remember when Negreanu calculated the return on investment for all the players who played more than 30 WPT events? Well, Carlos still tops that list — he averages a little more than $100,000 for every WPT event he enters (this was his 57th event, and he has $5.75 million in WPT earnings). Looking at it that way, is it any surprise that Carlos made the trip to Indiana?

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BJ your post was 8 times as long as the Chops post. And 16 times better.

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