WSOP National Championship to Host a Super Field?

The WSOP National Championship sees its structure completely reformed this year, including the addition of $1,000,000 to the prize pool.

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Sam Barnhart, the 2011 WSOPC National Championship winner

The WSOP Circuit (WSOPC) National Championship invitational event was first organised in 2011 for the top 100 players in the WSOPC season of 2010/2011. Despite the event not being an integral part of the world championship, the winner was in for a golden bracelet. It turned out to be Sam Barnhart to best the best for the title and the $300,000 first prize.

WSOP has just announced that the event will be held this year, too, although with a throughly modified structure. It will be an organic part of WSOP 2012 under the name of WSOP National Chmapionship on 6 July, at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. In addition to the top 100 players of the 2011/2012 season of the WSOPC, the 100 best WSOP and WSOPE players can also enter the event for $10,000. The full sum of the buy-ins will be added to the prize pool, right next to the $1,000,000 added by WSOP.

"This marks the first time we will take the best of the best from all our events to compete against one another to determine a true WSOP National Champion," WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart commented. Considering that mostly amateur players enter the WSOPC, a partially easier and moderately sized field with a huge prize pool may indeed convince the top pros of the WSOP and WSOPE  to enter.

A total of 34 players have secured their seats in the WSOP National Championship with their tournament victories, while the remaining 66 will be assigned based on point counts. According to the point calculations of the past two years of the WSOP and the WSOPE, players who can qulaify for participation are the following:

Michael Mizrachi
Ben Lamb
Shawn Buchanan
Phil Hellmuth
John Juanda
Chris Moorman
Jonathan Duhamel
John Racener
David (Bakes) Baker
Frank Kassela
Richard Ashby
Steve Billirakis
Jason Somerville
Brian Rast
Daniel Idema
Eugene Katchalov
Bertrand Grospellier
Jeffrey Papola
Tristan Wade
Pius Heinz
Jason Mercier
Matthew Matros
Daniel Kelly
Sam Trickett
Michael Chow
Allen Kessler
Ákos Kwaysser Valdemár
Vladimir Shchemelev
Joseph Cheong
Men Nguyen
David (DB) Baker
Joe Ebanks
David Chiu
Owais Ahmed
Mikhail Lakhitov
Tomer Berda
Sam Stein
Mitch Schock
Eric Buchman
Miguel Proulx
Martin Staszko
Jake Cody
Christian Harder
David Peters
Daniel Alaei
Matt Jarvis
Tom Dwan
Sean Getzwiller
James Dempsey
Ian Gordon
George Lind
Will Failla
Gavin Smith
Amir Lehavot
Nick Schulman
Joshua Tieman
Alexander Kostritsyn
Mark Radoja
Allen Bari
Matt Glantz
Jarred Solomon
Maxwell Troy
David Bach
Elio Fox
Mark Schmid
Ayaz Mahmood
Nick Binger
Matt Keikoan
David Sands
Yevgeniy Timoshenko
Arkadiy Tsinis
Jason Dewitt
Fabrice Soulier
Robert Mizrachi
Matt Marafioti
Steve Landfish
Maxim Lykov
Chris Bjorin
Jon Turner
Sammy Farha
John Dolan
Pascal LeFrancois
Viacheslav Zhukov
Victor Ramdin
Joshua Brikis
Nicolas Fierro
Gabriel Nassif
Scott Montgomery
Kirill Rabtsov
Jesse Rockowitz
Péter Gelencsér
David Diaz
Tyler Bonkowski
Eric Cloutier
Michael Michnik
Owen Crowe
Vitaly Lunkin
Steve Sung
Eric Rodawig
Sami Kelopuro