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$200,000 prize pool for Commerce celebrity tournament

A prize pool worth $200,000 has been put up by the Commerce Casino in California for the World Poker Tour (WPT) Celebrity Invitational event it is hosting next year.

Celebrities and WPT champions will compete against each other in the tournament, which will award a $25,000 seat to the WPT Championship to the winner.

The event is by invitation only and has attracted the likes of James Woods, Jason Alexander, Paris Hilton and Jon Favreau in recent years.

Van Nguyen won the 2008 version, becoming the first female in history to receive a WPT bracelet.

She received $125,500 for the victory and the prestige of becoming the only person in her highly-decorated poker playing family to lift a WPT title, ahead of husband Men Nguyen and in-laws David Pham and Minh Nguyen.

Multi-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Bill Baxter was at the final table and finished in third place.