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The 2006 WSOP Tournament Of Champions $1M prize Goes to Mike Sexton

This week, on 28 of June 2006, poker tournament legend Mike Sexton won the first prize of 1 million dollars for the Tournament of Champions which opened this year's World Series of Poker tournament.

The 2006 WSOP Tournament of Champions included Twenty-seven players that were invited to this poker affair. Among these players were the players in the final table of the 2005 WSOP main tournament. This tournament has been covered closely by various online poker tournaments throughout the net.

The TOC included a $2 million freeroll, with $1 million first prize money to the top player. The 2006 WSOP was launched with the TOC as the starting tournament. The heads up game between Sexton and Negreanu was by far the most interesting part of the poker tournament. Sexton had 1.4M in chips, against Negreanu's 1.2M. The heads up game continued for several hours, with the chipload switching back and forth between the players. It took three hundred hands until the final game occurred. Sexton won over Negreanu's Q-Js with non other than pocket Aces. This was after Negreanu made a risky all in bet.

The winners of the 2006 TOC:

1st place - Mike Sexton $1,000,000
2nd place - Daniel Negreanu $325,000
3rd place - Mike Matusow $250,000
4th place - Chris Reslock $150,000
5th place - Andrew Black $100,000
6th place - Darrell Dicken $75,000
7th place - Chris Ferguson $50,000
8th place - Kido Pham $25,000
9th place - Daniel Bergsdorf $25,000
10th place - Gus Hansen with no prize

Joe Hachem, the 2005 WSOP main event winner only got to 22nd place, and proved to be a disappointment.

"You know, sometimes I'm glad I have a day job," Sexton commented right after his poker tournament win, "I'm proud of the way I played and maybe I proved that the "old school" guys still got some game." In an amazingly generous move, Sexton donated 50% of his TOC 1 million dollar prize to charity. Perhaps this places Sexton as the most generous player that ever existed in any poker tournaments.

Sexton has indeed been in the poker business for a long time - more accurately over 20 years. On his earlier years he was a gymnast. After leaving the army Sexton dabbled in various jobs, before deciding to become a professional poker player in 1985. Sexton co hosted the World Poker Tour on the Travel channel. Sexton is also one of the founders of the Tournament of Champions of Poker.

Among Sexton winning accomplishments are:

The World Series of Poker bracelet in Seven Card Stud High Low from 1989.
The top five all-time players for "times in the money" at the WSOP.
The 2000 European Finals of Poker.
The inaugural Foxwoods World Poker Finals $10,000 No Limit championship in 1992.
The $5000 Four Queens Summer Classic No Limit championship in 1996 and 1997.
The €5000 Heads-Up Championship in Paris in July 2003.

Todd Sanders.
Senior Editor

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