Bodog Beat

The "godfather of poker" will be attending the event that bears his name at the Five Diamond World Poker Classic. (Bodog Beat Image)

Yesterday marked the kickoff of the Bellagio's Five Diamond World Poker Classic with a series of preliminary events that culminates in a couple of weeks with the $15,000 buy-in WPT Doyle Brunson Classic championship event. This main event has the second largest buy-in on the tour, second only to the $25,000 WPT World Championship.

There will be 12 preliminary events – all no limit hold'em – ranging from a $1,500 buy-in to $5k plus five super-satellites into the championship event. The first preliminary event is already playing out it's final table, which featured poker pro Layne Flack. At time of publish though, we can tell you that there are 5 people left and Flack has hit the rail. Fellow poker blogger (pocketfives.com) Court Harrington is at the final table and sending text updates via his site. So, we also know that he just lost a huge pot to chip leader Nick Binger. We'll let you know how he fares tomorrow.

The championship event begins on December 12 and will draw a huge number of big name poker pros. Last year, 583 players came out and the final table featured a battle between two of the game's juggernauts, 2005 World Series of Poker champion Joe Hachem and multiple WSOP bracelet winner and WPT champion Daniel Negreanu. With the $2.1 million win, Hachem became the first poker player to win both a WSOP championship title and a WPT title.

Stay tuned here and we'll keep you posted on all the happs from the Bellagio.