The lineup for the unprecedented $1,000,000 buy-in tournament taking place at the 2012 World Series of Poker is starting to take shape and the roster is nearly complete as it approaches the 48-player cap, but there were a few minor tweaks this past week, including the loss of one of poker’s most entertaining figures and the addition of one of the greatest gamblers in the world as a replacement for a satellite winner.

Tony G drops out, forfeits $100k deposit

Last week Tony G announced via PokerNews.com that he would not be playing in the Big One for One Drop tournament as he has a scheduling conflict. So what kind of scheduling conflict could be more important than playing in the greatest poker tournament ever held, and forfeiting your $100,000 deposit in the process? Well, it appears Tony G (yes Tony G) is the Manager of the Lithuanian Men’s Basketball Team!

Tony will be with the squad as they play in Houston and then on to South America for qualifying games.

Haralobos Voulgaris in for Carlos Nahas

According to ptprpoker.com, big-time sports-bettor Haralbos Voulgaris has purchased the seat won by Carlos Nahas in the $25k buy-in satellite held by Le Grand Tournoi de Poker Loto-Quebec. Nahas wasn’t even the original participant in the satellite event as a friend won his way into the tournament via a slot machine and handed the ticket off to his poker playing friend. Now the duo have parlayed a lucky pull of the slots into what is likely a hefty lump sum for the entry, plus a piece of one of the better players in the field in Bob Voulgaris.

Voulgaris told ptprpoker.com “… my main motivation for playing this tournament was the field. Its a high buyin tournament, so that aspect of it is very exciting. In addition the field isn’t exactly replete with professionals. There are a lot of casual players entered in this tournament so I think its quite possibly one of the highest ev tournaments ever.” And a full interview with Bob Voulgaris will be posted on the site shortly.

Current Roster

Here is a look at the current roster for the Big One for One Drop tournament with the recent changes:

1. Anonymous — U.S. Hedge Fund Manager

2. Anonymous – U.S. venture capitalist

3. Anonymous – European hedge fund manager

4. Anonymous – U.S. hedge fund manager

5. John Morgan — CEO, Winmark Corporation

6. Guy Laliberté

7. Phil Ruffin

8. Cary Katz

9. Paul Newey

10. Richard Yong

11. Andy Beal

12. Arnaud Mimran

13. Frédéric Banjout

14. Bob Bright

15. Paul Phua

16. Roger Teska

17. Eugene Katchalov

18. Jens Kyllönen

19. Jason Mercier

20. David Peat

21. Vivek Rajkumar

22. Andrew Robl

23. Nick Schulman

24. Noah Schwartz

25. Sam Trickett

26. Erik Seidel

27. Bobby Baldwin

28. Patrik Antonius

29. Gus Hansen

30. Daniel Negreanu

31. Johnny Chan

32. Tom Dwan

33. Jonathan Duhamel

34. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier

35. Daniel Shak

36. Justin Smith

37. Giovanni “Malibu” Guarascio

38. Haralobos Voulgaris via Carlos Nahas

39. MGM Mirage satellite seat

40. Caesars Entertainment seat

41. Caesars Entertainment via June 30 $25,300 satellite at Rio

Other potential entrants (at somewhere between 50% likely to 99% likely to play) include Jean-Robert Bellande, Mike Sexton, Phil Hellmuth, and Ben Lamb.

Tags: Basketball Team, Big Time, Conflict, Ev, Gamblers, Lump Sum, Minor Tweaks, Motivation, Nahas, Participant, Playing Poker, poker tournament, Satellite Event, Slot Machine, Slots, South America, Time Sports, Voulgaris, world series, World Series of Poker

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 19th, 2012 at 7:24 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.