Yesterday afternoon, 1,197 people started with $10,000 and a dream, to win the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. By the time play ended after 1am this morning, only 643 get to return on July 8th for day 2a. Mark Garner was the day 1a chip leader with 194,900. Other notable names near the top: Brandon Adams, Kido Pham, Chau Giang, Tim West, Darren \”Gigabet\” Dicken, Hasan Habib and Ray Romano. You can find chip counts of all the survivors of day 1a here.
The talk among those in the poker media appears to be Harrah\’s concern on the number of entrants who\’ve registered so far for the Main Event. They may have finally crawled over the 5,000 figure this morning, but with talk of day 1d being \”sold out\”, and the \”green box conspiracy\”, it may be doubtful that they reach last year\’s 6,358 figure. Today\’s figure will be interesting because of the 4th of July holiday if they can match the 1,545 that played on day 1b last year. If not, expect the discussion will begin anew on whether the final table delay played a part in the decrease, and what measures that Caesars\’ will undertake for the 2009 Series (ie. raising the buyin, moving it overseas, etc.).
One thing for certain, I think the players won\’t be tortured with the vocal stylings of Wayne Newton with the UNLV marching band. Expect other Harrah\’s properties entertainers to kick off the festivities for the other day 1\’s.
12:10pm UPDATE: Pauly reports that as of 11:00am, just over 1,100 signed up for day 1b.
More updates during the day, stay tuned…
