The $50K PPC Final Table Deserves Main Event Coverage

The $50,000 Poker Players Championship final table is set — and the single most important bracelet of the summer is about to be decided without Main Event-level coverage.

I don't care how many entries the Main Event draws. The PPC is the hardest bracelet to win in poker, full stop. It's a $50K mixed-game gauntlet that filters out anyone who can't play everything. And this year's final table is stacked enough to prove the point.

Benny Glaser has $8.87M in lifetime earnings across 35 final tables and still doesn't have a bracelet — this is his best shot at fixing that.

The Table Speaks for Itself

Kristopher Tong leads with 2,428,000 in chips — a one-bracelet winner with just over $1M in career earnings who's now sitting on the biggest stage of his life. Right behind him: Benny Glaser at 2,286,000. Glaser has $8.87M in lifetime cashes across 35 final tables and zero bracelets. Zero. That's not a stat, that's a storyline screaming for cameras.

Maxx Coleman (2 bracelets, 3 rings, $3.17M in earnings) is third with 1,917,000. Matthew Glantz — 23 career final tables, $4.49M lifetime, also bracelet-less — sits fourth at 1,480,000. And then there's Chris Brewer at 1,253,000 with $15.5M in lifetime earnings and 2 bracelets already on the shelf. Brewer alone has more career earnings than the rest of the table combined.

Five players. Three with no bracelet hunting their first (or, in Glaser's case, correcting a cosmic injustice). Two multi-bracelet winners looking to add to their legacies. A combined $33M+ in lifetime cashes.

This is the kind of final table you put on every screen in the Rio.

The Counter-Take

Sure, you could argue the PPC field is small and viewership doesn't justify a full production — mixed games don't rate like No-Limit. But that argument confuses popularity with importance. The PPC exists specifically to crown the most complete poker player alive. If the WSOP wants to be taken seriously as a sporting event and not just a content farm for No-Limit all-in flips, this is the final table that proves it.

Brewer at $15.5M. Glaser at 35 final tables without hardware. Tong as the short-stacked underdog who bagged the chip lead.

Put the cameras on.