Poker played by professionals has assumed a lot of significance in today’s times, as compared to the yesteryears.

Celebrities are constantly winning titles in the poker events. The WPT Invitational was no exception, with the coming of 315 entrants for a season that lasted for 3 days from the 22nd to the 24th of February, 2006.

The prize pool was kept at $200,000 with the first prize being $125,000. There were six finalists in this event in total, and the detailed payout of all these finalists is summarized below:

Barry Greenstein was richer by $125,000 as he laid his hands on the mega booty by occupying the first seat.

Blair Rodman took charge of the second seat and he received $50,000 for his work.

Allen Kessler at the third seat got a total payout of $20,000, while Jesse Jones at the fourth seat received $15,000 in consideration.

Thomas Martin Lock at the fifth seat got himself $10,000 while Ugur Marangoz got a payout of $5,000 for the sixth seat that he earned.

The play commenced quite normally, with each poker trying to outsmart the other resulting in a lot of bluffing from all sides. But due to these activities, Ugur’s stacks only decreased as he was the first one to get eliminated from the event.

Barry was very aggressive right from the beginning and exercised his influence throughout the day. He resisted the shock from pro Blair Rodman, and managed to stay focused on his game. This cat-and-mouse game between the two continued for quite a while. The four players made rapid progress; each keeping a check on the other.

After rounds of elimination, Greenstein and Rodman were pitted against each other. But later on in the game, Rodman committed a gamble only to realize that he had handed over the victory to Greenstein who was all smiles on winning the first prize! He denoted the entire prize money to a charity, as he always does.

- Thomas Hardy