Retrospective of the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic

The World Poker Tour (WPT) has a long and storied tradition dating back to 2002, a year before Chris Moneymaker rocked the poker world by shipping the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event and starting what is known as the poker boom.

The very first WPT event was the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and the tournament is now approaching its 15th anniversary. It is also the only event to be held every year in WPT history.

This year’s $10,400 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic takes place from Dec. 5-10 and is once again expected to attract the biggest names in the game as one of the most recognizable poker tournaments of the year.

Here is a look at the history of the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic:

2002: Gus Hansen Defeats John Juanda Gus Hansen

The first WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic was held in May 2002 when Gus Hansen won the first of his three WPT titles after defeating a field of 146-entrants to win $556,460. Remarkably the first-place prize represented 40 percent of the $1,416,200 prize pool.

Back in 2002, there weren’t many five-digit tournament buy-ins. This resulted in many of poker’s top names entering the field with many that were among the 18 players that cashed including John Juanda who snagged the second-place prize of $278,240.

Other notable players to cash in the first WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic included Freddy Deeb (third – $139,120), John Hennigan (fourth – $83,472), Scotty Nguyen (sixth – $48,692), Amir Vahedi (12th – $16,694) and Todd Brunson (16th – $13,912).

Additionally, this tournament represented the last time 1992 WSOP Main Event champion Hamid Dastmalchi cashed in a live poker tournament, taking 14th place for $15,303.

2003: Paul Phillips Ships the First Seven-Digit Prize

The following year, the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic moved to the middle of the World Poker Tour schedule and since then has been held every year in December.

Thanks to the poker boom beginning, the tournament attracted more than double than the event the year before, with 314 entrants generating a $3,070,050 prize pool.

Gus Hansen made a serious run at becoming a back-to-back champion before bowing out in third place for $276,426. Dewey Tomko, who before this tournament finished twice in second place in the WSOP Main Event in 1985 and 2001, once again had a runner-up performance in this tournament to collect $552,853. This isn’t to say Tomko hasn’t been in the winner’s circle before; he has collected three WSOP gold bracelets in side events with one in 1979 and two more in 1984.

Paul Phillips (photo courtesy of The Hendon Mob)

Paul Phillips, however, was the star of the show collecting the tournament’s first seven-digit cash after defeating Tomko to collect $1,101,908 or almost 36 percent of the prize pool. The first-place prize also represented almost half of Phillips’ $2,331,237 total career cashes.

Once again many big names were among the 36 to cash in this tournament including Abe Mosseri (fourth – $174,585), Chip Jett (eighth – $58,196), Bill Baxter (11th – $34,917), Phil Laak (12th – $34,917), Amir Vahedi (14th – $29,097) and Erik Seidel (19th – $17,458).

2004: Daniel Negreanu Ships His Second WPT Event of the Year Daniel Negreanu

It wasn’t until 2007 that Daniel Negreanu became a member of Team PokerStars, joining a very recognizable stable of players including former WSOP Main Event champions Chris Moneymaker, Joe Hachem and Greg Raymer. However, Negreanu was already a big name in poker well before that.

Negreanu took down the third WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic in 2004 collecting what was then a record $1,770,218 top prize or more than 32 percent of the $5,470,800 in this tournament. Remarkably, this was Negreanu’s second WPT victory and second seven-digit cash of the year after previously shipping the 2004 Borgata Poker Open Main Event for $1,117,400.

Despite now having seven cashes of at least $1 million in his poker career and having the most cashes in live poker tournament history with $32,619,168, according to The Hendon Mob, it took almost a decade before his win in 2004 was supplanted as his biggest in his career when he took second place in the 2014 WSOP Event #57: $1,000,000 No Limit Hold’em – The Big One for One Drop for $8,288,001.

The 2004 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic also witnessed another increase in entrants with a field of 376 players despite the tournament’s buy-in increasing to $15,300. Big names to finish in the top 10 in that year’s event included Humberto Brenes (second – $923,475), Jennifer Harman (fourth – $299,492), Nam Le (sixth – $152,468), Hasan Habib (seventh – $108,906) and Johnny Chan (eighth – $87,125).

2005: Rehne Pedersen Wins Over $2 Million

In 2005, the buy-in for the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic remained the same at $15,300. However, the field once again grew for the fourth straight year with 555 entrants generating a huge $8,075,250.

Rehne Pedersen

Denmark’s Rehne Pedersen might be the definition of a one-hit wonder after he shipped the tournament for $2,078,185 or almost 26 percent of the total prize pool. While Pedersen went on to record other cashes, he has been unable to break the six-digit cash mark, let alone seven, since his big day in 2005. His win also represents more than 90 percent of his total $2,302,466 as tracked by The Hendon Mob.

This year’s tournament also marked the first time it awarded more than one seven-digit prize with Patrik Antonius winning the runner-up prize of $1,046,470. Poker legend Doyle Brunson also came close to being the last man standing, taking third place for $563,485.

Other big names to finish in the top 10 during that year included Joanne Liu (fourth – $362,140), Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken (fifth – $241,495), Phil Laak (sixth – $160,995), Joe Cassidy (seventh – $144,895) and David Levi (ninth – $112,695).

2006: Joe Hachem Binks His Second Big Win in Back-To-Back Years Joe Hachem

Joe Hachem became a household name back in 2005 when he shipped the WSOP Main Event for $7,500,000. A little more than a year later, Hachem did it once again by shipping his second multimillion-dollar …

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