NOTE: Registration for day 1c will reopen Tuesday at 4:40pm PT, while registration for day 1d reopens Wednesday at 4:40pm PT.

Day1a recap

Day 1a of the Main Event got underway after Greg Raymer gave the command to “shuffle up and deal” shortly after 12pm on Monday to the 1,125 player throng, mostly seated in the Amazon room. The Pavilion room had a few tables at the start, but they were the first to be broken and moved into the Amazon room. Raymer was the first big name to be eliminated yesterday, crippled when he moved in with a flush draw against his opponent’s flopped set of tens. The flush didn’t get there, and he was gone a few hands later. During the day he would be followed out the door by notables such as T.J. Cloutier, Victor Ramdin, Isaac Haxton, Chino Rheem, Nick Schulman, Mike Caro, Ray Romano, Billy Baxter and Jimmy Fricke.

When play ended in the middle of level five, 762 players will return Friday afternoon for day 2a with the survivors from Wednesday’s day 1c field. The day 1a leader is British pro James Mitchell Corwin Cole with 241,075 228,200 in chips. Michael Mizrachi is 4th in chips with 142,650, with others near the top of the leaderboard including Barry Shulman (113,325), Chris Moneymaker (107,425), John Hennigan (95,050), Maria Ho (90,700), Scott Seiver (80,100), Vince Van Patten (75,450) Dwyte Pilgrim (68,775), Lacey Jones (67,600), Rene Angelil (52,275) and Matt Glantz (44,000) . The full list of chip counts is now available at wsop.com.

Day 1b preview

Today’s 1b field will bring another crowd of 1,000+ players to the Rio, each holding their $10,000 lottery ticket, hoping for a big payday. Follow all the updates, chip counts and other excitement over at wsop.com, or follow Dan’s lists of Twitterers.

Monday also meant the conclusion of the last two preliminary bracelet events:

Vonk valiant, wins 1000 NL bracelet

The final $1,000 No-Limit Holdem of this year’s WSOP was won by the Netherlands Marcel Vonk as he defeated David Peters heads-up, earning $570,960. Peters earned $350,803 for his runner-up finish, with England’s Paul Kerr in third for $255,076. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

Tomer wins final prelim bracelet

The $2,500 No-Limit Holdem came to an end earlier this morning with Tomer Berda with holding all the chips as he overcame a 2-1 chip deficit against Vladimir Kochelaevskiy heads-up, pocketing a cool $825,976. Kochelaevskiy will receive $510,939 for the second place finish. Full results and Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

Had an interesting convo last night with @HeartlandPokerTodd (not his real twitter name, though it prolly should be) …

Todd Anderson from Fargo, North Dakota, bought into his first WSOP Main Event a few days ago, and we were talking about the value of chips acquired early in this $10k, long blind-levels, triple-stacked tournament. Before long we began to conclude that a player would be fine making it to Day 2 without playing a single hand. We couldn’t agree, however, on where that chipstack would be at the end of Day 1.

So here is my attempt to calculate it … feel free to disagree and/or disparage:

More…

Our Pokerati player/parking-lot-correspondent crew is still at it, trying to win their way into the main event while keeping you up to date about the most compelling vehicular storylines at the 2010 WSOP. The driver of this SUV, spotted in the Rio’s WSOP valet lot, did not survive Day 1A, and in fact was the first former main event champion eliminated in 2010.

Long drive back home to Raleigh, I’d presume. (Think poker players honk at him along the way?)

Greg Raymer, btw, delivered the opening shuffle-up-and-deal (scroll down to the 12:06 pm entry), and was gone (from the tournament, not necessarily Vegas) less than an hour-and-a-half later, before the first break.

Already realized a few others I forgot about … beyond the usual poker-media-world suspects you’re probably already following such as @ftrainpoker @writerjen @jakatkin et @alcanthang. I’ve also recently become a fan of @eric_ramsey’s micro-wit+info … and I think you know Pokerati’s diggage of @Tim00, even when he’s not just pimping his favorite 1/2 nl/plo game @hardrockpoker. And those are just in addition to the solid poker-twitter-media obvs @PokerListings and @CardPlayerMedia …

I really hope this attempt to share with you a few notable follows doesn’t turn into a cryfest amongst twitterpals I’ve yet to meet who have yet to buy even me a beer in real life … But a couple other twitters you might not know about but probably should:

@All360Poker — the guys who’ve brought those funky Google Earth cams into the Amazon. Plausibly revolutionary.

@BJsPocketGuide — brand new on twitter, but WSOP regulars love this annual mini-book. Very reliable guide on paper … curious to see what becomes of this account in the future.

@_otis_ and @genebromberg finally showed up in Vegas, too, so be following them for sure; don’t even get me started on all the Euros who just recently arrived.

And if only we could get Tony the Rio’s head security honcho tweeting … I’d betcha he’s got tweets to rival @LostVegasBook!

Gotta think the twitters are gonna be an important part of following the main event … from Days 1×4 all the way to the November Nine. We can presume, of course, you’re already following the essentials for play-by-play and more — @kevmath @pokerati @wickedchops @taopauly @bjnemeth @wsop @wsoptd @jesswelman (also doing @bluffmagazine) @espn_poker @matthewparvis @change100 @benjodimeo and @pokernews …

But a few others that you may wanna be sure to add for the main event and beyond include:

@Tom_Dwan — the real durrrr is now tweeting, and turns out he’s pretty good at keepin’ it real in 140 characters or less.

@JeffreyPollack — the former WSOP commish has resurfaced on the internet with warm wishes. Good to see him around WSOP parts again, albeit slightly removed.

@RioVegas — if the suits @Harrahs have done one thing right, it’s hire a good social media dude for The Rio who has proven surprisingly responsive and capable of putting smart tweeters in touch with the right people when necessary.

@TheRealAsianSpa — not sure if this is an alterego to the most vitriolic (but informed) poker hater on twitter or what … but either way, apparently @AsianSpa has taken the ways of @SamChauhan’s @PositiveReport to heart and can’t help but look at everything #WSOP as benefitting from a happy ending.

@GamingCounsel — was hoping others might not notice the Canadian attorney who’s proven a great source on the latest legal developments in the gambling world … but now my competitive colleagues all follow him, so if you care about poker laws, you should, too.

@TheGroupie — she’s just a poker fangirl who’s not in Vegas, but met this 20something poker-playing figure-skater PhD @riovegas just the other week, and for some reason couldn’t stop staring at her tweets.

@OskarGarcia — the AP’s Vegas-based reporter covering gaming is putting in some extra time at the WSOP.

@PUNTE — Josh Zerkle is a professional sports and social media-y kinda guy @WithLeather, and is keeping his WSOP micro-thoughts and observations here.

There … all those should do you extra-well. Feel free to leave any others @’s you think Pokeratizens and assorted poker fans might not wanna be missing this July in the comments.

Here’s a story I heard the other night … like much of what we report here, I have no idea whether or not it’s true. My source on this is generally reliable, and he heard it once-removed from some “online pro” who was in a bathroom stall at the Rio to overhear the following …

(And even if it’s totally made up, I’m sure there’s a funny joke in here somewhere … and Sam and Eskimo can consider it a public service graciously provided by Pokerati to let them know what kinda trash people may or may not be saying.)

So supposedly, just a few days ago, Sam Grizzle and Eskimo Clark were in the indoor bathroom outside the Amazon Room taking a leak during a break. Eskimo apparently asked Sam how he was doing, and vice versa … both grunted.

Then Eskimo asked, “You wanna trade 10 percent in this event?” (I believe it was a $1,500 NL) and Sam apparently agreed, saying, “Sure, why not?”

Sam then washed his hands and left, at which point another player said to Eskimo, “Hey Paul, did you just swap with Sam on the $1,500? He just busted out 10 minutes ago!”

At which point Eskimo responded, “That’s OK. I never even registered.”

[Rimshot!]

History of the World (Series of Poker)

Yep, it’s now time for the WSOP main event numbers game … if entry numbers drop significantly, my ghad what a disaster … whoa is poker! A small drop, as we saw last year, no worries, Team WSOP can spin it accordingly … If they grow slightly, cool, we are right on track since the UIGEA … see, all is fine in the poker world. If they grow TREMENDOUSLY and come anywhere near Jamie Gold-year numbers, holy fugk, the entire world is a better place, starvation has been eliminated, and Osama bin Laden has been captured!

I’m going with “slight increase” … but wouldn’t be surprised to see “slight decrease” or even “slightly bigger than expected increase”. The WSOP’s official fan page on Facebook ran a poll — How many people will you have to beat to win the 2010 WSOP Main Event? — and here were the results:

under 5,000 – 5%
5,000-6,000 – 5%
6,001-7,000 – 25%
7,001-8,000 – 29%
over 8,000 – 36%

Guaranteed: unless we cross the 8k barrier, a super-majority will be wrong.

Fact: They didn’t have these kinda off-base poll results back in the days of Friendster.

From Moss to Moneymaker:
The Early Decades

More…

More fun WSOP main event numbers trivia here:

http://www.funtrivia.com/en/subtopics/WSOP—Legends-Of-The-Main-Event-241979.html

Who knew?!

UPDATE: Day 1 of the Main Event will play 60 minutes of level 5. The 90-minute dinner break will take place at the end of level 3.

The World Series of Poker, to most people who don’t follow poker, finally gets underway this afternoon with day 1a of the $10,000 No-Limit Holdem World Championship, better described as the Main Event. A field of 6,500 players are expected to show up at the Rio in Las Vegas, seating themselves at tables in the Amazon and Pavilion rooms, hoping their two chips and a chair will turn into something much larger over the next 12 days when the last 9 players return in November to play down to a winner.

The main concern for this year’s Main Event will be if Thursday’s day 1d, which had the highest number of pre-registered players, may mean some players could be shut out. Throw in the schedule (four two-hour levels scheduled for each day 1), and it’s possible not enough players will be eliminated on days 1a and 1b to accommodate the much larger fields expected for days 1c and 1d.

While the Main Event gets underway today with updates at PokerNews and wsop.com, or follow Pauly’s live blog. There’s still two more bracelets to be awarded today along with the rest of Sunday’s action.

Alaei wins 10k PLO

The final table of the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship concluded with Daniel Alaei defeating Miguel Proulx heads-up to win $780,599, along with his third career WSOP bracelet. Proulx, winner of the $2,500 PLO event earlier this WSOP, collects $482,265 for the runner-up finish. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report coming soon at wsop.com.

Huck Seed, TOC winner

The final day of the WSOP Tournament of Champions concluded with 1996 Main Event winner Huck Seed defeating Howard Lederer heads-up, winning $500,000. Lederer adds $250,000 to his results, with Johnny Chan earning $100,000 for third. Full results at wsop.com.

1k, 2.5k final tables today

The final two preliminary bracelet events will be awarded this afternoon, both with a start time scheduled for 3pm, but the Main Event may throw a hitch in those plans. Follow the updates at PokerNews or wsop.com. First, here’s the final table for the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem:

More…

Today is the day. Here’s what it takes to play. The fact that 90 percent won’t get them back is part of what makes the body do things on the inside.

Is somebody winning the TOC? Do we care? Not saying I won’t be watching it once it gets edited down for TV, but I thought we were supposed to be at a final table by now, not down to 17 10. With more than a week of retrospective and a third of the field eliminated remaining, the preferable alternatives for the 2011 WSOP seem obvious:

a) Hold the TOC at the very beginning of the WSOP, under some premise like who’s gonna kick off the Series with a little extra freeroll juice?

b) Hold the TOC during the November Nine. Add a little Harrah’s-branded excitement to that week, ya know, and give top pros a reason to make sure they’re part of it all? Also would give some eligible winners a chance to qualify while their stock is hot …

With this and three other final tables going on today … WTF happened to that “day off” we were promised?

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Dan showed up to the Rio super early for a Sunday just in case the the DOJ decided to bust Full Tilt honchos Howard Lederer and Jesus Ferguson. Pauly compared his morbid fascination of the potential perp walk to watching a NASCAR race in order to see a big wreck.

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Dan and Pauly recap the brief events of Day 1 of the TOC, and the slight confusion surrounding the change in schedule.

Be sure to catch up with all the episodes you’ve missed in the TOP podcast archives.

Note: At the time of this post (6:00am PT), registration is temporarily closed for days 1c and 1d of the Main Event.

A busy 4th of July awaits the WSOP with three bracelet events and the Tournament of Champions finishing today, maybe.

WSOP TOC finally resumes Sunday

It’s an early day for the remaining 17 poker celebrities as the WSOP Tournament of Champions plays down to a winner starting at 11am. Mike Matusow will lead the field with 85,500 in chips when play gets underway, follow the gripes, complaints and other action around the felt at PokerNews.

Proulx leads 10k PLO final table

With 18 players left, the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship looked like it would feature a strong final table. That fizzled when Tom Dwan, Phil Hellmuth, and Jason Mercier were eliminated in the final two tables, leaving a very international final table when play resumes at 4pm with this lineup:

Seat 1: Ludovic Lacay – 2,279,000
Seat 2: Daniel Alaei – 1,800,000
Seat 3: Miguel Proulx – 2,440,000
Seat 4: Matthew Wheat – 745,000
Seat 5: Ville Mattila – 490,000
Seat 6: Trevor Uyesugi – 435,000
Seat 7: Alexander Kravchenko – 330,000
Seat 8: Stephen Pierson – 570,000
Seat 9: Dmitry Stelmak – 1,285,000

Peters leads day 3 1k NL field

Day 3 of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem is scheduled to play down to a final table when play resumes at 3pm. David Peters leads the remaining 47 players with 594,000 in chips, with bracelet winner Jesse Rockowitz (320,000) and Alex Jacob (163,000) among the notables remaining. The full list of chip counts and results are at wsop.com.

Mackey’s Million leads 2500 NL

Day 3 of the $2,500 No-Limit Holdem finds 73 players returning at 3pm, attempting to reach a final table. James Mackey (1,011,000) holding a large chip lead over the field. Other notables who come back to the Rio include Mike Wattel (428,500), Jon Turner (288,000), Dan Shak (215,500), Isaac Baron (194,000), Craig Marquis (152,000) and Court Harrington (145,000). Full chip counts and results available at wsop.com.

At first I wondered how on earth a Mazda 626 got “ALL IN” … but then, upon closer look, realized this driver is the kinda player who knows how to make things work, even when they miss:

One bracelet already awarded, another bracelet possibly awarded tonight, the mess that is the Tournament of Champions and other tournament action:

Kelly wins 25k 6-max, Brunson 10 Deal

The final table of the $25,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max took less than four hours to complete, as 21-year old Dan “djk123″ Kelly took down the bracelet along with $1,315,518 when his A-10 ran down Shawn Buchanan’s pocket jacks with an ace on the river. Kelly also became the 7th member of the Brunson 10 with the win, as he was part of a competition during the WSOP to award the spot. Buchanan earned $812,941 for his second place finish, he also won a big hand on the river a few minutes earlier, when the money went in on an open-ended straight draw against Frank Kassela’s flopped two pair. The straight on the river meant a 3rd place finish for Kassela ($556,053), along with 60 POY points to give him a stranglehold on the title. Jason Somerville ($386,125), Mikael Thuritz ($272,804) and Eugene Katchalov ($194,559) rounded out the final table. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

Proulx leads 10k PLO, Hellmuth’s chips throw TOC into chaos

What was expected to be the final day of the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship is currently on a dinner break with 18 players remaining. Miguel Proulx, who won the $2,500 PLO event earlier in the WSOP, holds the chip lead with 1,966,000, with Ludovic Lacay (830,000), Jason Mercier (794,000), Tom Dwan (501,000) and Phil Hellmuth (181,000) among the notables remaining. Live updates available at wsop.com.

Hellmuth’s stack is causing problems for the Tournament of Champions, which was scheduled to resume at 7pm. With Hellmuth still in the TOC, the other 16 players were hoping for Hellmuth’s elimination tonight to get the field down to a final table and avoid a long day on Sunday. After Hellmuth made the dinner break, there was discussion about playing one level during the PLO dinner break, but with Joe Hachem asleep and Huck Seed unable to be found, that idea was scrapped and the TOC will be played out starting at 11am, unless some other problem arises in the next few hours.

Phil Gordon wins Ante Up for Africa

A field of 83 poker pros and celebrities, took the felt in the $5,000 Ante Up for Africa charity tournament, with Phil Gordon beating Shannon Elizabeth heads-up, with Gordon donating the entire $129,086 to Ante Up for Africa. Erik Seidel and Jerome Bettis also appeared at the final table. Annie Duke tweeted that over $300,000 was raised in total from the event. Full results and Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

$2,500 NL nears the money

After a delay in the $2,500 No-Limit Holdem due to a shortage of available dealers, 222 players remain for day 2, with the final 196 making the money. James Mackey is the current leader with 240,000 in chips, followed by Isaac Baron (170,000), David Singer (144,000), Andy Philachack (100,000), Jamie Gold (82,000), Tom Franklin (74,000) and Jason Dewitt (63,700). Updates and chip counts available at PokerNews.

1k NL makes the money

Less than 200 players remain in the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem with at least four more levels scheduled for tonight. Check the results and updates at wsop.com.

Recapping the rest of Friday night’s action that Dan didn’t post about, with a Saturday full of battles that don’t involve UFC 116: featuring Brock Lesnar v Shane Carwin.

Taylor wins battle of roommates at Limit Shootout

The final table of the $1,500 Limit Shootout was one of the strongest final tables you’ll see at a $1,500 event with notables like tournament limit holdem specialist Terrence Chan, former WPT player of the year Jonathan Little and former Party Poker Million winner Mike Schneider. When it came down to heads-up, it would be roommates Brendan Taylor and Ben Yu battling it out for the bracelet, with Taylor coming out on top to earn $184,950 and the bracelet. Yu brings back $114,484 for the runner-up finish while Little finished 3rd ($73,218), Schneider came in 6th ($23,563) and Chan a disappointing 8th ($12,961). Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

Kelly and Kassela headline 25k 6-max final table

Day three of the $25,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max started with a flurry of eliminations in the first hour; leading Daniel Negreanu to take issues with the structure on Twitter, eventually finishing in 11th. Dan “djk123″ Kelly, who started the day 18th in chips, will start the final table today as the overwhelming chip leader, while Frank Kassela will try to add to his WSOP Player of Year lead. Here’s how the final table will look when play resumes at 2:30pm PT, with streaming available at ESPN3.com (where available) or updates at wsop.com:

Seat 1: Frank Kassela – 2,610,000
Seat 2: Jason Somerville – 1,665,000
Seat 3: Dan Kelly – 5,895,000
Seat 4: Eugene Katchalov – 475,000
Seat 5: Shawn Buchanan – 2,110,000
Seat 6: Mikael Thuritz – 1,535,000

Talbot tops day 1b 1k NL

Day 1b of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem drew a field of 1,504 players Friday afternoon, with 255 players joining the rest of the day 1a survivors to have a total field of 586 returning at 2:30pm. The money will be reached when 396 players remain with the winner earning $570,960. The day 1b chip leader is Andrew Talbot with 70,175. The full list of day 1b chip counts can be found at wsop.com, those looking for a table draw, i’ll try to get it up on my Twitter as soon as it becomes available.

Sander grinds into lead at $2,500 NL

The final prelim of the WSOP, $2,500 No-Limit Holdem drew a field of 1,941 players Friday afternoon, with 500 players remaining when play resumes at 3pm. The money is reached when 198 players remain, with the winner pocketing a payday of $826,418. The reported chip leader is Dan Smith with 229,000, although he tweeted 22,900 earlier this morning. Marc Sander holds the chip lead with 98,000, followed by notables such as Mark Newhouse (81,400), Isaac Baron (70,100), Court Harrington (69,000), Dan Heimiller (53,100), Jamie Gold (42,000), Jonathan Aguiar (37,000) and Ivan Demidov (34,800). The full list of chip counts appears over at wsop.com and check my Twitter or WSOP’s Twitter for the table draw.

Ante Up for Africa

The annual charity effort held at the WSOP, Ante Up for Africa, gets underway at 2pm. The $5,000 buy-in event helps bring poker pros and celebrities together to help out a worthy cause. Those who make the money are encouraged to donate half of their winnings, hopefully the controversy from last year’s event will be avoided this year.