Play officially began for the 40th World Series of Poker as Phil Hellmuth and Jeffrey Pollack bellowed the immortal “Shuffle Up and Deal” for event #1, the $500 Casino Employees tournament. A smaller than expected field of 866 entered the Amazon Room to take part including known names such as Bellagio TD Jack McClelland, Marsha Waggoner, and two-time bracelet winner Pat Poels. Play ended when the money was reached at around 1am PT with 81 players (including Team Pokerati member John Harris). The chip leader going into today’s play is Cesar Chavez (not to be confused with Cesar Chavez) with nearly 110,000 in chips. Those players will return at 2pm to play down to the first bracelet winner of the Series.

The first open event at the WSOP also has the highest buyin for a no-limit holdem event. Event #2, the 40th Anniversary $40,000 NL Holdem starts at 12 noon. Players will start with 300 BBs (120,000 in chips), so don’t expect too much action on day one of the four day event. What will be highly anticipated is the number of entrants for this event. Most are expecting around 225-300 to try and get themselves on the ESPN final table on Sunday afternoon.

My first over/under prediction didn’t go so well, as I was over 200 off and was below the WSOP Staff Guide’s projection for the Casino Employees event. I’ll try to get myself to 1-1 by stating that the field will be well over the 150 projected by the WSOP, with a final field size of 237. More updates to come as the day progresses.