Day 1a of the Main Event is in the books, with 821 players remaining from the 1,116 who started the day. The reported chip leader is Eric Cloutier at 150,750. Other notable names with chips include: Jason Alexander (89,575), Pokerati’s Tom Schneider (79,600), John Hennigan (76,250), Vitaly Lunkin (68,300), Someone who didn’t report (69,500), Jimmy Fricke (63,425), and Andy Black (56,475). To see the entire list of chip counts, check it out here.

Day 1b gets underway at noon today, and will surely be the smallest field of the four day 1’s, with a chance the field will be under 1,000 when the registrations are calculated sometime after the dinner break after level 2 this afternoon. To see if that happens, follow the live updates over at www.wsop.com and more stuff from Pokerati during the day.

The final update before the Main Event for me, as it’s final table time in the $5,000 NL Holdem 6-max event. The final table is now four-handed consisting of Josh Brikis, Sean Keeton, Matt Hawrilenko, and Faraz Jaka. Jonas Wexler and Matthew Waxman finished 5th and 6th respectively. Live updates are available at www.wsop.com

Ante Up for Africa is being filmed now for ESPN, and it has plenty of Full Tilt Poker pros with Rafe Furst, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Phil Gordon, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Harman and John Hennigan appearing at the final table. Hopefully Dan and/or Jen will have more updates when there’s a result.

Friday afternoon starts the Main Event, and all the fun and chaos that brings to the Rio. Pokerati will be there to catch the action, so come back, please.