The Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino attracted hundreds of players to the preliminary events. The first eight events put together $5.5 million in prize-pool money generated by more than 2,500 entries. The poker room at the Bellagio was full with a variety of players, including world famous poker pros, first time beginners and amateurs. The tournament continues daily through the WPT Doyle Brunson Classic championship event's final TV table on December 18^th. Entry for that tournament is $300, with a $15,000 buy-in. Joseph Hachem won the last such event in 2006, winning $2,207,575. Previous winners include Rehne Pedersen, Daniel Negreanu and Gus Hansen. Last year's series attracted some of the biggest fields outside of the WSOP and David "DevilFish" Ulliot, JC Tran and Erik Cajelais were among the pro's to win titles in preliminary events.

The first event brought 472 runners generating a prizepool of $686,760. Big name pros didn’t make it to the final table, pro Layne Flack and Michael Binger's brother, Nick Binger, battled for the first-place prize of $162,070, but they would both fall short of the effort put forth by eventual winner James Cornell.

Roy Winston down the 362 entrants event No. 7.  He came victorious at a final table that featured poker pros such as Michael Mizrachi, Jared Hamby, Dan Alspach, and Thayer Rasmussen. This was his third cash during the Five-Diamond World Poker Classic prelims.

There are still plenty more events for players to compete in. Event No. 9, a $3,120 buy-in no-limit Hold'em event, started today at noon. The Five Diamond World Poker Classic is a name that will always be remembered for bringing a lot of emotions and memorable situations to the poker community around the world. The increasing interest in the tournament has brought more players than any other edition; every single player is looking to get a place in the final table of one of the major poker events around the world, with the aid of the media the game seems to be now much more exciting than ever.