Some WSOP thoughts as you watch this guy work his opponent.
Today is day 1 for the hordes of amateurs ready to begin their World Series of Poker, as its day 1a of the $1,500 NL Holdem event. This weekend we\’ll find out if the field will break the record for the largest field in a non-Main Event tournament (3,151 at event #49 last year).
According to BJ Nemeth over at Pokernews, as of 1:30a PT, over 3000 have registered. The fact that this will be the only event, besides the Main Event, to have multiple day 1\’s also will help make this possible. It\’s been mentioned that there will be no alternates this year, but with one room (Brasilia and its 650 seats) not available until mid-June, how many people will be shut out of a seat? From all reports, things did run much smoother than last year\’s day 1 (save for the random clock malfunction); will the same hold true for those attempting to register at the last minute today?
What happened yesterday:
The $10,000 Pot-Limit Holdem event started, with the UNLV marching band playing \”Viva Viagra Las Vegas\”. What, no clowns, Shriners in those little red cars and balloons for the kids?
An encouraging 352 took $10,000 out of their bankrolls to enter the tournament and only 70 will start play today. Only 36 will be paid, with the winner at the end of business Sunday taking home $794,000. Eli Elezra will start today with over 300,000 in chips. Other notable names at the top of the leaderboard include Nenad Medic, Patrik Antonius, Tony LiCastro, and Phil Laak. Complete chip counts and live updates, starting at 2pm PT over at Pokernews.
The Asian Poker Tour, under the capable hands of tournament director Matt Savage, continues with day 2 of their $2,500 main event as they play down to their final table on Sunday. Pokernews is all over this one as well.
The under-appreciated Pokerfolio took a few pictures of the happenings of day 1.
Follow Pokerati randomly through your Saturday, surely more stuff will pop up later.
