Another day, another 2,000 players will be expected to start play in the first $1,500 NL event of the 2008 WSOP. When play starts shortly after 12pm PT today, the record for the largest field in WSOP preliminary event history will have been set, all that\’s left to be answered is if it can break the magical 4,000 figure. Today\’s field will match the progress of day 1a, playing eight 60-minute levels plus the first 16 minutes, 13 seconds of level 9.
Today will also have the first final table, as the $10,000 PL Holdem event finished up just before 5:00am, setting up a fantastic final table under the ESPN cameras. This final table has something for every section of the poker community. You have the young Internet stars (Mike Sowers and Amit Makhija), players wel-known to the mainstream audience (Phil Laak and Mike Sexton), a female player (Kathy Liebert), a math genius (Andy Bloch), international stars (Patrik Antonius and Nenad Medic) and a good ole boy from North Carolina (Chris Bell).
Here\’s how the final table will be seated:
Seat 1: Mike Sowers 675,000
Seat 2: Chris Bell 455,000
Seat 3: Amit Makhija 525,000
Seat 4: Patrik Antonius 230,000
Seat 5: Andy Bloch 2,115,000
Seat 6: Mike Sexton 1,130,000
Seat 7: Phil Laak 425,000
Seat 8: Nenad Medic 1,200,000
Seat 9: Kathy Liebert 285,000
What happened yesterday:
An almost sold out field of 2,048 started play Saturday in the $1,500 NL event. The plan was to play ten 60-minute levels, but the eliminations went so quickly, that the tournament staff decided to stop play when the field was down to 224 players. They\’ll get to relax on Sunday, waiting to see they\’ll be playing Monday afternoon, starting around 5:00pm PT.
The $10,000 Pot-Limit Holdem field of 70 started at 2pm, playing about 15 hours (with a 3 hour long bubble for the televised final table). Payouts for the other 27 money earners (which included Eli Elezra, Mark Newhouse, Rolf Slotboom) can be found at Pokernews, Card Player, or your favorite outlet for poker results.
More later today…