Another down day for today’s Main Event as only 873 registered for day 1b, the lowest day 1 figure since the poker boom began. Reports indicate that over 2,700 players combined have already registered for days 1c and 1d, combined with the 1,989 who have already registered means the 5,000 figure should easily be reached. Another rumor, this one reported by ESPN’s Andrew Feldman, says that Days 1c and 1d will play 5 two-hour levels, followed by 4 two-hour levels for Day 2b. The Day 1a and 1b survivors will then play 5 two-hour levels on Day 2a so everyone has played nine levels when the field combines for day 3.

On to what’s known, and that is the Day 1b field is on their fourth and final level of today’s play, with about 720 players remaining. Notables who have already been eliminated: Chris Moneymaker, Doyle Brunson, Vicky Coren, David Pham, boxer Winky Wright, and Marlon Shirley, who will definitely get some airtime during ESPN’s Day 1b coverage.

The unofficial chip leader is Nick Maimone, with 129,000 in chips. Some notables with chips includes: Ali Eslami (85,000), Fabrice Soulier (66,000), Erik Seidel (59,500), Shaun Deeb (53,000), Joe Sebok (42,500), and Amarillo Slim (36,000). You can follow the live updates at www.wsop.com here.

See what other rumors get started or squashed at Pokerati in the evening hours and early morning and I’ll be back with more stuff in the morning.

This kinda puts the planned Phil Hellmuth WSOP main event entrance into perspective. Read below the announcement of what’s about to happen — scary — and how they’re going to make sure any onlookers are properly refreshed by drinking tasty milk products on The Strip during the illusion of plausible death.

At 8:30 p.m., members of the public are encouraged to head to the Miracle Mile Shops’ southern Las Vegas Boulevard entrance (by Hawaiian Tropic Zone) to witness a “Death Drop” escape performed by Daredevil Magician Steve Wyrick.  Bennington, assisted by members of his new side project Dead by Sunrise, will lock and shackle Wyrick into one of the band’s equipment boxes. Connected to a crane by only a few thin ropes, the box will be dangled over a bed of 500 flaming spikes 80 feet below. The ropes will then be set on fire, forcing Wyrick to make his escape before the last rope breaks and sends him plummeting to a fiery death. Wyrick will have to jump 20 feet off a burning box to a safety rope and rappel down while avoiding the spikes and tremendous heat. This type of escape has never been attempted by an illusionist anywhere in the world.

Free MollliCoolz Shakers will be available to keep the crowd of spectators refreshed and cool during the stunt.  Shakers are revolutionizing the ice cream world this summer with its new, fun way to make milkshakes by adding milk to its free-flowing beads of ice cream.  For more information, visit www.mollicoolz.com.

Union talks with Benjo are going well — we still haven’t come to complete resolution, but it’s good we’re still all at the table — and thus, to the tune of the Star-Spangled Banner on American Independence Day / La Quatrième de Juillet, he joins Pauly to give a report from Day 1B as Doyle Brunson gets cards in the air … But not before the sometimes-Angry Frenchman is put on self-loathing tilt by a fucking wanker someone wearing a Zidane jersey and America’s insistence on calling soccer football.

Tao of Pokerati at the 40th WSOP
Las Vegas, NV

Episode 11.29: Poker de la Liberté (feat. Benjo)
3:06

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Big ups to the WSOP for much better T-shirts for sale this year. Though shockingly they didn’t bring back the Phil Hellmuth camisa that listed all his bracelet wins on the back — I kinda wish I had one for the irony now that they’re gone — they do have this one, which is pretty funny to poker people and even funnier for the non-:

BTW, while we’re still thinking about and workshopping new names for the $1,500 Super Mega-Awesome-WSOP-Initiation No-Limit Hold’em Pokerthons, so long as the official WSOP store is selling the above shirts (and they should, because they’re funny), just sayin’ that some people might have a hard time letting go of the phrase “Donkaments”.

Meanwhile, this shirt is not for sale in the WSOP store, but is still pretty awesome, and doesn’t technically violate Rule #36, though I’m sure it insults somebody!

Thanks, Ed, for the link!

Here’s a sneak peak at what Phil Hellmuth has in store for his Day 1. Would be really ballsy if he saved it for the final table … because hey, actually that would be pretty cool if final tableists could enter the “arena” like professional wrestlers, or at least boxers. But for Day 1 of a tournament that’s already started? Man, I really wanna poo-poo it for the ridiculousness … but he is the biggest man when it comes to WSOP Hold’em … so why not let him be the Ric Flair of Poker? This is Vegas, after all, so ridiculousness pretty much works.

Mostly SFW pics of women wearing togas and male gladiators below. The Phil Hellmuth marketing machine is still working on getting real horses into the Rio, and they’ve got a plan B ready to go if that can’t work:

More…

Day 1a of the Main Event is in the books, with 821 players remaining from the 1,116 who started the day. The reported chip leader is Eric Cloutier at 150,750. Other notable names with chips include: Jason Alexander (89,575), Pokerati’s Tom Schneider (79,600), John Hennigan (76,250), Vitaly Lunkin (68,300), Someone who didn’t report (69,500), Jimmy Fricke (63,425), and Andy Black (56,475). To see the entire list of chip counts, check it out here.

Day 1b gets underway at noon today, and will surely be the smallest field of the four day 1′s, with a chance the field will be under 1,000 when the registrations are calculated sometime after the dinner break after level 2 this afternoon. To see if that happens, follow the live updates over at www.wsop.com and more stuff from Pokerati during the day.

One of the “Pokerati Hotties” in the media Dream Team event … and for a warm-up, @RobertGoldfarb bought himself a bargain entry about 3 hours ago:

(my backers) Spent about 3k, but I finally won my main event seat.

Still liking our 3,000-12,000 number for the overall size of the 2009 main event.

Until I can get back to the Rio (tomorrow hopefully) — and since honestly, I hardly care about Day 1 chip counts ever — I’m following the action of course here, and mostly here, and then a little bit here. Not saying you shouldn’t also be looking elsewhere, but at the moment I have to really limit my computer screen time, so before I can catch up with everything more in depth online and in real life, I’m sticking with the clicks that I know will give me the most in a few seconds of skim. I’d include Wicked Chops, but I get their goods daily via email … and you know, trying to cut back on the screen-stare.

The Main Event got underway today with Jack Link’s mascot Sasquatch grunting his way through the “Shuffle Up and Deal” with a field of 1,116 (down from last year’s 1,297) starting day 1a. Jeffrey Pollack’s vlog with Wicked Chops Poker, shown below, hopes to get 5,000 entrants, which would be about 25 precent below last year’s 6,844. The lower than expected numbers could also explain the decision to play only 4 two-hour levels on days 1 and 2.

At the moment, there’s about 4,000 registrants already signed up, most of which are on days 1c and 1d, so don’t be surprised if you hear rumors about Monday’s day 1d being “closed” for registrations to add some entrants to days 1b and 1c. Notables who have already been eliminated today include: Jerry Yang, Freddy Deeb, Orel Hershiser, John Phan, Gabe Kaplan, Davidi Kitai and 2009 EPT Grand Final winner Pieter de Korver. The unofficial chip leader is Dragan Galac at 110,000 in chips, followed by by 2006 EPT Grand Final winner Jeff Williams at 106,000.

Other notables with chips: Jason Alexander (84,500), Eli Elezra (84,300), Tom Schneider (57,000), Phil Laak (46,000) and Jimmy Fricke (45,000). Follow the last level of play at the WSOP site here. Chip counts should be available in the early morning hours, but if you want to see who decided to pay their $10,000 today, a list of Day 1a entrants can be found here. More stuff this weekend, so come back to Pokerati often.

Watch Jeffrey Pollack Vlog on Day 1A of the 2009 WSOP Main Event on RawVegas.tv

Internet filtering software specifically targeting online gambling sites is here! Plus, why is the Barney Frank Bill about to be delayed up to two months?

It’s the first episode without the Wolfman, but you should still listen as the WSOP media-osos gather outside the Amazon room to discuss $50k HORSE, late registration policies, WSOP parties, PokerPalooza, the big question of whether or not the WSOP is polarizing into varsity and JV divisions, and … the best and worst ideas in play at the 2009 World Series of Poker.

Special pass-bys by Charles Barkley, Mike Tyson, and Oliver Tse … plus the Insider and the Tight Laydown. Dr. Pauly sits in with the crew … and gotta say, as the first episode I’ve ever heard just as a listener, this Poker Beat thing is a pretty good show!

on PokerRoad

The Poker Beat
Caldwell, McGwire, Wise, Nemeth, Stapleton
7/2/09

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In case you missed it (I did) here is some Pokernews video from the first of about a dozen big WSOP main event run-up parties, this one hosted by Ultimate Bet at Studio 54 in the MGM.

So much sayable about this, lol … and we can use the phrase “lol” because twitter comes into play. More Phil Hellmuth making a mockery of a few orbits before being pulled from the 2-7 Triple Draw … Tiffany Michelle talking about experimenting with UB and her breasts … Layne Flack being Layne Flack … Shawn Rice and Debo sitting … and just about everything else you might expect from a celebration of, by, and for “anyone who is anyone” in the UB poker world:

Today is the first day of the 2009 main event. I’m sticking to my guns and saying the field size will be anywhere from 3,000-12,000 and offering 10:1 odds on anything outside of that. Just made a wager on the over for 5,000 … easy. Anyone else wanna offer that line? Seriously, it’s such a wild guessing game, and yet in the end, why do I think it’s gonna be just a few hundred less or just a few hundred more than last year’s main event field of 6,844? People can get their money off of PokerStars, right?

Meanwhile, Team Pokerati final tableist Gregg Merkow won his main event seat last night … and now is trying to figure out the differences between Day 1A-1D:
via Facebook

Winner winner chicken dinner won my seat to the main event in mega sat. today but can’t decide what day to play fri,sat,sun or mon.

Good question. Though as Kevin points out the numbers will likely differ noticeably as the 96 hours that constitute Day 1 progress, is there really a difference in the types of fields you can expect on each day? One more donkey-filled than another, for example (and is that a good or bad thing, lol).

Choosing when to play, of course, is the first of many decisions that will be part of someone’s journey toward becoming the winner. But it may also be the least relevant and simply depend on the player and his or her life schedule.

Click below for Nolan’s official report — all the data you could want, complete with quotes from celebrity players, information on who exactly played (and won), and info about the fundraising component. A few things that stand out to me:

• 138 entries. Up from 88 last year, which was way down from 167 in 2007. Wonder what’s up with that — The economy? Celebrity Apprentice?
• The Scheinbergs played? I was under the impression that the family atop the PokerStars pyramid was taking a long vacation from the United States, particularly in light of the payment processor crackdown … but maybe not? Different Scheinberg family from New York?
• Philip Tom, dad of accused online-poker bad guy, cashed, finishing in 10th place. Charity makes everything good.
• Belorussian wins. (Should this event be included in the Pokerati World Standings?)
• Who was the one player who didn’t play ball with the donation process?

More…

Congrats to Matt Hawrilenko, winner of just over $1,000,000 in the $5,000 NL Holdem 6-max earlier this morning.

The big day has finally arrived, the final bracelet event of this year’s World Series of Poker, the $10,000 NL Holdem World Championship starts shortly after 12pm today, after the various festivities that kick off the event conclude (marching bands, Wayne Newton, or whatever they decide to do this year).

Each Day 1 will play 5 two-hour levels of poker, with a 20-minute break after each level and a two-hour dinner break. Thousands will swarm the various tournament rooms of the Rio to either play or spectate, some hopefully catching the eye of the ESPN cameras that will be around to film all the action. Expect a return of the mysterious Post-It note covering the total number of registrants on the tournament clock, which eventually revealed 6844 entrants. This year’s WSOP Staff Guide projects a field of 7323, and if last year is an indicator, Days 1a and 1b (being the 4th of July) will have the smaller fields, while Sunday and Monday’s days 1c and 1d will be much larger as people decide to enjoy their weekend before plunking $10,000.

As always, plenty of updates will be available at www.wsop.com and Dan, Jen and the rest of Team Pokerati will do their part to describe the action over the next two weeks.