The final opening day of the Main Event drew a field of 2,391 hopefuls to the Pavilion and Amazon rooms at the Rio on Thursday afternoon. Football Hall of Famer/Dancing with the Stars winner Emmitt Smith kicked off the festivities with the \”Shuffle up and play\” command, before deciding to go with the traditional \”shuffle up and deal\”. According to Pauly\’s semi-live blog, he initially refused to sign the ESPN waiver, possibly still bitter about the Worldwide Leader getting rid of him a couple years ago. After finally signing the waiver, he was eliminated a short time later. Among the notables who also had an early day: Joe and Tony Hachem, Doug Lee, Sorel Mizzi, Allen Kessler, John Juanda, Phil Gordon, Brian Townsend, Steve Dannenmann, Michael Craig and Pam Brunson.
After nine hours of play, 1,699 players get to return Saturday afternoon for day 2b. The reported day 1d leader is Steve Billiarakis with 187,150 in chips. Some other notables returning on Saturday include: Archie Karas (137,775), David Benyamine (130,800), Vanessa Rousso (111,050), Jason Mercier (90,525), Frank Kassela (87,000), Darvin Moon (78,400), Kara Scott (69,625), Barry Greenstein (53,625), Doyle Brunson (52,425), 97-year old Jack Ury, (40,500), Bryan Micon (36,400) and Shawn Sheikhan (32,900). The full list of chip counts is available at wsop.com.
Day 2a gets underway at 12pm with over 2,400 players returning, scheduled to play 4 levels. The 90-minute dinner break will be held after 3 levels are played, which would mean the middle of level 8, although that has not been confirmed by tournament director Jack Effel at this time. For those looking for the day 2a table draw, it\’s available in PDF and spreadsheet form. During the day, be sure to check out wsop.com and your favorite Twitter followers and find out what\’s going on at the World Series of Poker.
