Last year’s WSOP saw a great turnout for the $50,000 HORSE Championship with a field of 148. Scotty Nguyen memorably took down the $2 million first place prize.
This year Nguyen has added some extra pressure on himself by stating that he would retire if he didn’t win $4 million over the course of the entire WSOP. Well there are only eight events left and he’s only cashed for $33,668 so far, so pressure’s on baby!
It will be extra difficult to make that kind of cash since this year the HORSE Championship is limping along with a field of a mere 77 making for about half the prize pool of last year.
So what’s with the tiny field? Well, aside from the obvious culprit, the economy, there was the big turn out for the new $40,000 NL Holdem event at the start of the WSOP with its 201 entrants. That might have blown the budget for a lot of players who were on the fence for the HORSE Championship.
Stay tuned to the Cake Poker Blog for more live updates from the 2009 WSOP.
UPDATE: Lots of late entries saw the field grow to 91 just before the second break.
