A total of six players are members of the DoylesRoom Brunson 10, the illustrious crop of up and coming poker superstars handpicked by the legendary Doyle Brunson. Currently, four members of the PocketFives community will battle it out in a leaderboard competition during the ongoing World Series of Poker (WSOP) for the seventh spot. The player with the highest number of points earns their place in the Brunson 10. These aren’t just any online poker pros. Instead, they represent some of the top talent the industry has to offer. Let’s take a look at the four finalists.
David Doc SandsSands has been on a tear during the 2010 WSOP and, at the time of writing, leads the DoylesRoom Brunson 10 Become a Legend Leaderboard. A 25 year-old from Bozeman, Montana, Sands finished eighth in Event #5 of the 2010 WSOP, a $1,500 No Limit Hold’em tournament, for $67,000. A former #1 player in the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings, Sands sits at #21 worldwide on the strength of the seventh best Pro Poll score. In May 2009, he was the Monthly PLB champion and seems to be hitting his stride at the optimal time to become the next Brunson 10 member.
Dan djk123Kelly is a native of Potomac, Maryland and is the youngest of the four finalists at age 21. He has $4.5 million in career earnings, the most of the group, and holds down the fort at #8 worldwide in the Online Poker Rankings. Kelly is still in search of his first WSOP cash, but has been electric online, where he finished fourth in the 2009 PokerStarsWorld Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) Main Event for $643,000. He also won the tournament series’ HORSE High-Roller event for another $252,000. More recently, Kelly took second in the Sunday Warm-Up in the final weekend of March for $109,000.
Faraz The-ToiletJaka has perhaps the most live experience of the group. He was the only player to final table the PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) High Roller tournaments at the Venetian and Mohegan Sun and is the reigning World Poker Tour (WPT) Player of the Year. Jaka made final tables at the WPT Bellagio Cup V and Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic for a combined $1.3 million. Online, Jaka took down the Absolute Poker$150,000 Guaranteed in April for $39,000 and finished second in the Full Tilt Sunday Mulligan in January for $33,000.
The final competitor vying for a Brunson 10 title is Michael Martine23 Martin. A Pennsylvania native, Martin has $4.1 million in career earnings, the second highest tally of the group, and won the European Poker Tour (EPT) London Main Event in 2008 for nearly $2 million. Martin finished fifth in the EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final the same year for $666,000 and was the runner-up in the 2007 Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam for $531,000.
The Brunson 10 currently includes Chris moorman1 Moorman, Amit amak316 Makhija, Zachary CrazyZachary Clark, Alex AJKHoosier1 Kamberis, Dani ansky451 Stern, and Steve gboro780 Gross. On Monday, June 7th, you can play against these rising stars as part of the site’s Beat the Brunson 10 tournament, which runs every other Monday at 9:00pm ET. The bounty tournament will set you back $22 and you’ll bank $500 for every member of the Brunson 10 you send to the rails. In addition, the winner of the Beat the Brunson 10 poker tournament collects $1,000 in cold, hard cash as a winner’s bonus.
We’re running a $50,000 rake race on DoylesRoom during June in conjunction with a select number of other affiliates. The top prize is a healthy $6,500 and a total of 275 players will finish in the money. Just by signing up for DoylesRoomthrough PocketFives.com, you’ll earn 33% rakeback. The site happily takes action from the United States.
Visit DoylesRoom for more information on the Become a Legend Leaderboard.