Meet the Final Six

At 2 PM, the six survivors out of 137 elite players entering Epic Poker’s first Main Event will return to the EpiCenter to determine which will become Epic’s 6-Max (and first) champion. Based on the structure of the event, most of the final table players have the chips to maneuver and demonstrate the full range of skills they have displayed for three days in the Palms Ballroom. When Adam Levy busted in 7th place last night, play stopped at 8,000-16,000/2,000 antes. Chip leader Hasan Habib, along with Jason Mercier, David “Chino” Rheem, and Erik Seidel have deep stacks. Gavin Smith has enough chips to play, though not with the cushion of the others. Only Huckleberry Seed is initially limited by his stack size, with 25 big blinds. Even then, Seed is not required to make a move quickly, and he has shown remarkable patience and tenacity with a short stack during the end of Day 2 and all Day 3.

One million dollars is at stake for first place, but these six players may be playing for something more important than the money. What the Championship Ring represents to each player is something special, and different.

Seat 1 – Hasan Habib
1,655,000 chips

Hasan is 49-years old and lives in Downey, California. He was born in Karachi, Pakistan, was a national tennis champion in his age bracket there, and came to California to attend University of Redlands. Habib’s first big year in tournament poker was in 2000, when he finished 4th in the World Series of Poker Main Event. He has one Major title, a World Series of Poker bracelet in 2004 in $1,500 Stud-8. His greatest WSOP accomplishments are, in addition to the bracelet and the 2000 final table, finishing 14th in the 2010 Main Event, worth over $500,000. He is also responsible for a notable World Poker Tour accomplishment, making the final table in the WPT Championship in consecutive years, 2004 (2nd place) and 2005 (3rd place). He has won over $5 million in tournament and televised poker.

What’s at stake for Hasan Habib? Winning this event would not only confirm that, nearing 50, he is still an elite player, but also that he is still getting better.

Seat 2 – Erik Seidel
1,109,000 chips

Erik is 51-years old and lives in Las Vegas. Erik began playing the World Series of Poker in 1988, finishing second to Johnny Chan in the Main Event. He subsequently won eight WSOP bracelets, a WPT event, the NBC National Heads-Up Championship, and over $12 million in Epic Poker qualifying tournaments. He is poker’s all-time leading tournament money earner and was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 2010. In 2011, Erik has won four tournaments with buy-ins above $20,000. He is the #2 player in the world, according to the GPI.

What’s at stake for Erik Seidel? Perhaps this is Erik’s chance to put Epic Poker to the test. He is already universally acknowledged as one of the greatest poker players ever. If Epic is really going to bring poker to the sporting and media mainstream, can it make Erik Seidel a star? He is 51, has a wonderfully supportive family and loyal friends (which are admirable qualities but will never make him famous the way Charlie Sheen and Britney Spears have become famous), keeps his emotions publicly invisible, and shows practically no interest in becoming a celebrity. But who knows? Cal Ripken, Jr. was and is pretty famous, and if poker becomes regarded like baseball, Ripken is Erik’s equivalent.

Seat 3 – David “Chino” Rheem
1,432,000 chips

David is 29-years old and lives in Los Angeles, California. Since his runner-up finish to Allen Cunningham in the $1,000-rebuy No-Limit Hold ‘Em event at the 2006 World Series of Poker, he has been regarded as a huge talent capable of winning the biggest tournaments. In 2008, he made the final table of the WSOP Main Event, finishing 7th in November when his A-K didn’t hold against Peter Eastgate’s A-Q. If the bad beat bothered him, he didn’t show it, winning the WPT Bellagio Five Diamond the next month, earning over $1.5 million.

What’s at stake for Chino Rheem? This is Rheem’s opportunity to make good on the promise he showed in 2008. He achieved some great things back then, but tournament poker is about what players have done lately. If Hasan Habib wants what Erik Seidel has, then David Rheem wants what Jason Mercier has.

Seat 4 – Gavin Smith
766,000 chips

Gavin is 42-years old and lives in Las Vegas. He has a degree in economics and, before becoming a professional poker player, worked in a colorful variety of jobs including taxi driver, greens keeper, and poker dealer. Gavin is one of the world’s most popular players – funny, honest, sometimes profane – is respected for his skill and loyalty to friends, family, and good causes.

In 2005-06, Gavin Smith was the best tournament poker player in the world. He won over $1.8 million in 2005, on a WPT event, finished third in another, and was named 2005 Player of the Year by Card Player Magazine and the WPT. In 2006, he made WPT and WSOP Circuit final tables, earning nearly $750,000 in major tournaments, plus $500,000 for winning the Mansion Poker World Pro-Am Challenge. Several months before the November 2010 birth of his son, Smith won his first World Series of Poker bracelet, in the $2,500 Mixed Hold ‘Em event.

What’s at stake for Gavin Smith? Respectability in middle age? Gavin would probably deny it, but he is a proud man and staking a realistic claim as “best player in the world” would be satisfying, especially if Epic Poker can turn the poker celebrity Smith had in 2005-06 (and may acquire again) into mass popularity. He has the rough-around-the-edges charisma as well as the talent.

Seat 5 – Jason Mercier
1,495,000 chips

Jason is 24-years old and lives in Davie, Florida, close to Hollywood, where he grew up. He is an excellent basketball player, and turned down a basketball scholarship after high school – he once scored 47 points in a game – to take an academic scholarship to attend Florida Atlantic University. His unofficial major at FAU was poker and, though it cost him his scholarship, obviously provided him with a solid education for what followed.

His first career cash was at the EPT San Remo event in April 2008. Mercier won his way in by an online satellite, and then beat out the 701-player field for 1st place and over $1.3 million. Since then, Jason has won … everything. He won WSOP bracelets in 2009 and 2011. He has won a total of NINE Epic Poker qualifying events during his poker career, and his poker career is under three-and-a-half years old. During that period, he has earned over $6 million.

What’s at stake for Jason Mercier? GPI#1, a chance to become a dominant performer (the equivalent of LeBron James or Kobe Bryant in basketball, Will Smith at the Hollywood box office, Roy Halladay in baseball) in a competitive activity that is more difficult than major sports to dominate. If Jason wins and Epic Poker levers the game into the mass media mainstream, he will become the most famous player of this generation. He deserves it, but with so many incredible players in his age group, the competition for the higher stakes of major sports celebrity will be ferocious.

Seat 6 – Huckleberry Seed
396,000 chips

Huck Seed is 42-years old and lives in Las Vegas. He grew up in Montana and went to college in California, at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech). He studied engineering and played on the basketball team.

For Huck, poker is a natural extension of his athletic skill, mental acuity, and competitiveness. The brilliant, cerebral, laid-back poker pro has won $4.5 million in Epic Poker qualifying poker tournaments, and $7.1 million total in tournaments and televised poker. He won four WSOP bracelets, including the Main Event in 1996. In 2008 and 2009, he made consecutive final tables in the WSOP $50,000 HORSE. He has also, in the past few years, won some of the largest and most prestigious limit-field televised events: the 2009 NBC National Heads-Up Championship, and the 2010 World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions.

What’s at stake for Huck Seed? The man is an enigma and attempts to categorize him or chart a career trajectory are doomed to failure. For twenty years, Seed has simply showed up to play. Sometimes nothing good happens. But other times – inevitably, over the years, and ironically in the events under the most intense spotlight – Huckleberry Seed amazes everyone with his skill and prevails. He is so unusual, so skilled, and so private, that it is an understatement to say, “Watching Epic Poker present Huck Seed to the mainstream sporting audience will be an interesting experience, both for Seed and the public.”