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WSOP Announces Tournament of Champions Field

The World Series of Poker announced on Wednesday the 20 players that were voted into the Tournament of Champions, a $1 million freeroll.

The 20 players will join seven other players who had already earned their spots through other means for the tournament, which will take place on June 27th at the Rio. One million in prize money will be up for grabs, with no entry fee.

The list reads, not surprisingly, as a who’s who of poker. Phil Ivey, considered to be the best player in the world right now, received the most votes, with 16,267. Daniel Negraenu was just 28 votes behind in second place in the balloting. The three players with the most bracelets in WSOP history — Phil Hellmuth (11), Doyle Brunson (10)

Here are the 20 players who got into the tournament, with vote totals:
Phil Ivey, 16,267
Daniel Negreanu, 16,239
Doyle Brusnon, 13,796
Phil Hellmuth, 12,673
Chris Ferguson, 11,585
Allen Cunningham, 10,486
Johnny Chan, 10,434
Scotty Nguyen, 9,834
Barry Greenstein, 9,806
John Juanda, 8,835
Erik Seidel, 8,802
Jennifer Harman, 8,206
Huck Seed, 8,180
Dan Harrington, 7,342
T.J. Cloutier, 6,281
Sammy Farha, 6,085
Howard Lederer, 5,596
Greg Raymer, 5,404
Joe Hachem, 5,272
Antonio Esfandiari, 5,129

Voting, which took place at WSOP.com, began in March and closed on Tuesday. In all, more than 355,000 total votes were cast at the web site. Voters could choose the 20 players they wanted to see play in the tournament. Voting was limited to players who had won WSOP events in the past.

If any of the 20 players cannot compete, the next highest votegetter will be invited to play in the tourney. Some of the more famous players who did not make the cut included Chris Moneymaker, the 2003 main event champ, Ted Forrest, and Eli Elezra, among others.

Other players in the field include five automatic qualifiers, including past TOC champions Annie Duke, Mike Matusow and Mike Sexton, and the reigning WSOP and WSOP Europe main event champions, Joe Cada and Barry Shulman. Andew Barton was a qualifier via WSOP.com, and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier won a nine-player qualifier last week that consisted of some of the world’s best players who had never won a bracelet.

The tournament will start on Sunday, June 27th, at noon Vegas time, with four one-hour levels. Play will continue on Monday at noon. The tournament will be aired on ESPN in August.

Looking for more information on the World Series of Poker? Check out a special section of our website.

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