Friday, May 23, 2003 | 10:28 a.m.
The Binion's World Series of Poker's premier event, the $10,000 buy-in no-limit Texas hold 'em world championship, concludes today with the record field of 839 players whittled to the final table of nine contenders.
The winner of today's event at Binion's Horseshoe in downtown Las Vegas will receive $2.5 million.
The five-day event began Monday with the breaking of the old record of 631 players set last year. Sixty-three players anted up the five-digit fee, while the majority got in by winning satellite events, some with buy-ins as low as $50.
Today's final table is dotted with relatively unknown players and one former world champion. However, for the last three years, the big game has been won by gamblers relatively unknown outside poker circles -- Chris Ferguson in 2000, Carlos Mortensen in 2001 and Robert Varkonyi last year.
Dan Harrington, a former attorney who gave up that profession in 1981 to become a professional gambler and won the World Series no-limit crown in 1995, entered today in seventh place with $574,000 in tournament chips.
The rest of the table (and their starting chip counts) are: Chris Moneymaker ($2.34 million), Amir Vahedi ($1.41 million), Sam Farha ($999,000),Tomer Benvenitsi ($922,000), David Singer ($750,000), Jason Lester ($695,000), Yong Pak ($360,000) and David Grey ($338,000).
Hometowns of the players were not immediately available.
The turnout for the final event in the 36-game tournament represents a 32 percent increase over last year and far surpassed the 700-player turnout that was projected. The tournament has drawn players from all over the United States and 27 foreign countries, tournament officials said.
Players were eliminated in freeze-out fashion.
The final woman player in the field, veteran professional gambler Annie Duke, was eliminated late Wednesday, finishing 47th. She was attempting to become only the second woman ever to make the no-limit hold 'em final table. In 1995, Barbara Enright finished fifth in the event.
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