WSOP: Event 20 the Largest Live Pot-Limit Omaha Tournament in Poker History

Jason Mercier is the defending $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha champ.

While many of the tournaments at this year’s Series have drawn smaller fields than they did at the 2009 WSOP, Event #20, the first Pot-Limit Omaha event of the 2010 WSOP, has actually reversed the trend and drawn a bigger field than last year. In fact, with 885 entries, this $1,500 event appears to be the largest live PLO tournament in poker history.

PLO has a long history at the World Series of Poker. It was first spread in 1984, when two separate PLO events ran; Dewey Tomko won the bracelet and $135,000 by defeating Roger Moore heads-up in the $5,000 event, while William Bennett won $84,000 and his only career WSOP bracelet by defeating David Sklansky heads-up. 

Since then the list of notable players who have claimed WSOP bracelets in PLO reads like a future Poker Hall of Fame lineup. Among the names are “Amarillo Slim” Preston, Hoyt Corkins, Humberto Brenes, Huck Seed, Sammy Farha, Chris Bjorin, T.J. Cloutier, Johnny Chan, Phil Ivey, Scotty Nguyen, Robert Williamson III, Erik Seidel, John Juanda, Chau Giang, Josh Arieh, Barry Greenstein, Scott Clements, Eric Froehlich, Vanessa Selbst, Phil Galfond, Layne Flack, Jason Mercier and J.C. Tran.

Poker people have been calling Pot-Limit Omaha “the game of the future” since it first began to grow in popularity back in the early 1980s. While it isn’t quite to the point of rivaling no-limit hold’em just yet, it looks like PLO’s time may finally have come.