Michael Binger Takes Down WSOP Circuit Championship

The World Series of Poker Circuit at Harvey’s Lake Tahoe is celebrating its largest turnout in the five year tournament history which generated an impressive $1,418,132 in prize money shared by 13 tournaments. The annual event is held on the beautiful south shore of Lake Tahoe right at the edge of the Nevada-California border and attracted 2,163 entrants. That number trumped last year’s record of 2,128 entrants. 
 
After struggling back from a severe chip deficit, Michael Binger, a 31 year old professional poker player from Las Vegas, Nevada captured his first major poker tournament. He took home $181,379 in first place prize money as well as the coveted gold ring which is awarded at all World Series of Poker Circuit championship tournaments. He was also given a buy in to the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event and $1,000 in spending money.
 
Binger is best known as the third place finisher in the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event winning more than $4 million. With his latest win at Lake Tahoe, he has now earned more than $5.7 million in career tournament earnings which spans over the last three years. An interesting tidbit about Binger is that he holds a PhD in physics from Stanford.
 
The Lake Tahoe event attracted many big name players including last year’s winner and 2000 poker champion Chris “Jesus” Ferguson along with Johnny Chan (the 1987 and 1988 world champ) and Jerry Yang (the 2007 world champ). Joining the ranks were World Series of Poker gold bracelet winners including Robert “RCW” Cheung, Scott Clements, Dan Heimiller, Jeff Madsen, Kathy Liebert and Max Pescatori. The only player in history to have won multiple World Series of Poker events, Evan Schwartz, also entered. 
 
The event runner up was Ty Stewart, a 32 year old middle limit cash game player from Sacramento who took home $112,675 in prize money. Binger was very excited about his victory, “It’s amazing. I told (a friend) that the next time I see him I would be wearing WSOP Circuit ring. And that’s exactly what happened here,” Binger said.

“I visualized this victory coming. It was a sort of mind over matter thing. The power of positive thinking,” Binger said. “I was down at one point (when heads-up) and told myself to stick with it. I played well, and the cards finally turned around for me. This is a very meaningful win for me because to win (on the WSOP Circuit) is considered a major tournament and it’s part of the World Series.”

When asked what his next goal is, he responded, “A gold bracelet.”