That said we can't shake the feeling that there are a number of notable poker personalities that are still missing from the biggest poker series in the world.
We did some research and we’ve compiled a quick list of the big-name players that have yet to take a walk down the halls of the Rio this year.
Expect most of these players to eventually show up, although you never know with some of them. Are we missing anyone? Feel free to leave a note in the comments.
Online Pros
Big high-stakes pros are notoriously flaky when it comes to playing the WSOP as it’s usually more profitable for them to play online cash games.
Tom “durrrr” Dwan used to play a number of WSOP events but that was primarily because he had a ton of bracelet bets. These days Dwan doesn’t have as many bets and therefore plays a lot less tournaments. He's more often found in the big games in Macau.
Meanwhile Americans Isaac Haxton, Ben “bttech86” Tollerene and Dan “jungleman12” Cates can’t play in the big online high-stakes games from the USA so they aren’t quite as motivated to play.
Haxton also just played the enormous GDAM Asia Poker Millions event in Macau.
Finally Viktor "Isildur1" Blom played his first WSOP last year and made a surprisingly deep run in the $50k Players Championship despite admitting he sometimes doesn’t enjoy live tournaments.
There’s a good reason a number of international players don’t come to the WSOP, however, and we’ll get to that a bit later.
1. Tom Dwan 2. Viktor Blom 3. Isaac Haxton 4. Ben Tollerene 5. Dan Cates
Old School Pros
It’s pretty clear who’s going to be #1 here.
Doyle Brunson has been saying for several years that he’s going to skip the WSOP due to the long hours required but it seems like he means it this year.
Maybe there’s a chance he plays the Main Event, and the WSOP would certainly love to have him, but we may have seen the Texas Dolly play his last WSOP. Doesn’t seem right.
TJ Cloutier used to be one of the biggest names in poker but he hasn’t cashed at the WSOP since 2011. It remains to be seen if he’ll show up this year.
Old school poker player and sports bettor Billy Baxter is a regular at the WSOP but we’ve yet to see him this year.
Dan Harrington doesn’t play a ton of events but cashed in a WSOP $2,500 Mixed Hold’em event last year.
Finally Freddy Deeb made a deep run in the ISPT event at Wembley but will likely be in Las Vegas for the WSOP shortly.
1. Doyle Brunson 2. TJ Cloutier 3. Billy Baxter 4. Dan Harrington 5. Freddy Deeb
International Players
Gus Hansen and Patrik Antonius are two of the most well-known poker players in the world but they tend to play a light WSOP schedule.
Part of the reason is that some international players are taxed heavily when they play the WSOP, although Hansen and Antonius now reside in Monaco to alleviate that concern, but they both tend to spend their time playing cash games.
Expect Antonius as an outside chance for the Main Event while Hansen will likely play a few more events. Hansen hasn’t cashed at the WSOP since 2011.
Danish pro Theo Jorgensen was shot in a terrifying home invasion earlier this year and that may keep him from the WSOP longer than he’d like.
Joe Hachem, like all Australian poker players, has a tremendous distance to travel to get to the WSOP, so he’ll likely show up in the later portion of the series.
Finally there’s no telling when Ville Wahlbeck, who was an absolute beast in the 2009 WSOP, will arrive to play this year’s edition.
1. Gus Hansen 2. Patrik Antonius 3. Theo Jorgensen 4. Joe Hachem 5. Ville WahlbeckVisit www.pokerlistings.com