PTS AT STAKE: FORMER WPT WORLD CHAMP STACKING SOME CHIPS

PHOTO/SOURCE: WPT.com

Former WPT World Champion Yevgeniy Timoshenko is trying to win this thing again! Timoshenko is currently third in chips behind Darren Elias and monster chip leader Abe Mosseri.

Timoshenko would love nothing more but to carry this momentum into Monday are really start putting pressure on his opponents - Timoshenko has been realtively quite on the felt for the last little while.

As expected, big names added their names to the field - taking advantage of the late registration process - as Tony G, Phil Hellmuth, Allen Cunningham and others made their way to the Bellagio Tournament floor for action.

One notable absence is Jason Mercier. Mercier had indicated that he was very much under the weather - unfortunately for Mercier, things didn't get better and instead of heading to the Bellagio, he checked into a hospital to make sure all is well ... Mercier tweeted the following earlier Sunday...

Can't believe I almost regged #WPTchamp. Have 102.9 fever and tonsilitis... Def sitting this one out

Speedy recovery Jason! Maybe an appearance at the Super High Rollers event later this week?

A total of 220 players registered for the WPT World Championship, 25 more players than last year's event that was won by David Williams.

The total prize pool is over 5 million dollars and the top 2 players will become millionaires - first place getting a little over 1.6M.

Here are the payouts:
1st: $1,618,344
2nd: $1,061,900
3rd: $589,355
4th: $361,665
5th: $278,749
6th: $225,654
7th: $172,559
8th: $119,464
9th: $84,952
10th - 12: $63,714
13th - 15th: $53,095
16th - 18th: $42,476
19th - 27th: $37,167

Here are the current unofficial Top 10 chip counts (which include three 2010-11 WPT Champions - Alan Sternberg (WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star), Randal Flowers (WPT Festa al Lago) and Jeff Forrest (WPT Foxwoods):

Abe Mosseri 675,000
Darren Elias 360,000
Yevgeniy Timoshenko 353,000
Steven Kelly 350,000
Justin Young 335,000
Alan Sternberg 330,000
Randal Flowers 320,000
Ryan D'Angelo 312,000
Brandon Steven 310,000
Jeff Forrest 297,000

Tune into WPT.com for live tournament updates.


PTPR GRAND SLAM EVENT
World Poker Tour World Championship
WPT World Championship
May 14-20, 2011

Bellagio Hotel Casino
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Buy-in: $25,500
Prizepool: $5,309,500
Entries: 220

Defending Champion: David Williams

POINTS AT STAKE:
1st position 152
2nd position 92
3rd position 77
4th position 67
5th position 62
6th position 57
7th position 52
8th position 47
9th position 37
10th position 27
11th position 22
12-14th position 20
15-17th position 17
18-20th position 14
21-23rd position 10
24-27th position 7