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Great Players Online and Off

At the end of each World Series of Poker there seems to be an overriding theme that runs throughout the event. One year quite a few female players won; another year it seemed like amateurs were taking over the game, and then the big-name pros asserted themselves the next year and Hall-of-Famers like Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan and T.J. Cloutier won bracelets.

This might be the year of the online superstar. Lately the leaderboards of major tournaments always filled with players far better known--for the moment, at least--by their online monikers instead of their given names. One such player is Jared Hamby, better known in poker circles as TheWacoKid. At least, that was before he won two preliminary events at the Bellagio's Five Star World Poker Classic, an event at the Mirage Poker Showdown, and then followed that up with a 2nd-place finish in the recently-completed WPT event at Mandalay Bay.

Not that Hamby isn't still crushing online which he proved last night with his 8th-place finish in our $200,000 Guaranteed Tournament. Hamby took some time off from his live play in Vegas to sit down with 934 other runners and fought his way to yet another final poker table before he was bounced giving him precious little time to rest up before the action resumes at the Rio this afternoon.

There were four poker tournaments running at the same time in the Amazon Room last night, but only one bracelet was awarded, in the $5,000 Mixed Hold-Em Event. And for the fourth year in a row the record for Youngest Bracelet Winner was eclipsed by another online monster. Steve "MrSmokey1" Billirakis defeated Greg "FBT" Mueller after a long heads-up battle last night and won the bracelet at the discouragingly-young age of  21 years and ten days of age. And even though the record has been broken the last four years the potential pool of young poker players with birthdays within the two-month WSOP window AND the chops to take down a bracelet is small indeed.

Though, who knows? With all the young kids walking around sometimes the hallways of the Rio feel more like a high school than a Vegas casino. I'm not even betting that Billirakis' records survives this year's events.