Mike Sexton wins one for the old school as he takes the pot and the 2006 WSOP Tournament of Champions title at the ongoing World Series of Poker (WSOP) tournaments running at Harrah’s Rio All-Suite Hotel in Las Vegas.

The 2006 WSOP-TOC was an exclusive with only 27 players invited to take part in the tournament. Players consisted of the final table from the 2005 version of the tournament, the 12 WSOP Circuit event winners and six Harrah’s sponsor exemptions. This made for an excellent field and the final table was loaded with big name talent and high caliber poker prowess.

After playing down from the original 27, 10 men made it to the final table: Thang “Kido” Pham, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken, Defending TOC champion Mike Matusow, Daniel Negreanu, Andrew Black, Mike Sexton, Gus Hansen, Chris Reslock, and Daniel Bergsdorf.

While there were 10 players at the table, only nine of them would actually walk away with something from the $2 million freeroll. The first player eliminated would leave with nothing while the rest would divvy up the prize pool.

Heads-up went down to Sexton and poker golden boy Negreanu. And after a nearly 16-hour final table, both players were exhausted. Negreanu took home $325,000 for finishing second and Sexton took away the $1 million payday.

“You know, sometimes I’m glad I have a day job,” Sexton joked as the Tournament Of Champions trophy was awarded to him. “I’m proud of the way I played and maybe I proved that the “old school” guys still got some game.”

We’ll find in six weeks if the ‘old school’ holds against the less seasoned players. The $10,000 No Limit Texas Hold’em Main Event Championship happens July 28-Aug. 10 when we will find out who will be the 2006 World Series of Poker champion.

Mike Sexton is one of the hosts of the World Poker Tour.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 28th, 2006 at 10:07 am and is filed under Freerolls, Poker Events, Poker Players, Poker Tournaments, Poker Winners. 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.