With a big thanks to Pauly, here’s my recapping of the Saturday night action, which includes our first bracelet winner at the 2010 WSOP:

A-Hoai to Pham!

Hoai Pham

Hoai Pham, a dealer at the Village Club Card Room in Chula Vista, California, earned the first bracelet of this year’s WSOP in the $500 Casino Employees Event this morning. Pham’s pocket aces on the final hand was more than enough to best Arthur Vea’s pocket fours on the final hand of heads-up play, collecting $71,424 and a prized WSOP bracelet. Vea collected $44,079 for his 2nd place finish, with the rest of the field who made the money here. Pham will return to the Pavilion at 2:20pm today for the bracelet ceremony and to hear the Vietnam national anthem being played in his honor. You can read the tournament report from Nolan Dalla here.

Morrison Moves into First in 50k Players’

Kirk Morrison

Kirk Morrison ended day 2 of the $50,000 Players’ Championship as chip leader with 54 players remaining. Morrison started the day with just 124,800 in chips, below the 150,000 starting stack. Andy Bloch finished the day second in chips (716,500) while day 1 chip leader Erik Sagstron wound up in fifth (656,000). Other notables: Robert Mizrachi (625,500), Michael Mizrachi (439,000), Chris Ferguson (430,500) and David Singer (369,000). Among those without chips: Phil Hellmuth, Jennifer Harman, Howard Lederer, Erick Lindgren, Jason Mercier and Daniel Negreanu. Play resumes Sunday at 3pm with another six levels of play scheduled as the field gets even closer to the money. Click here to see all who remain.

Day 1a of Donkament Down

Amarillo Slim

Day 1b of the first $1,000 No-Limit Holdem gets underway at noon today, with what could be an intriguing situation for the WSOP staff towards the end of play. Day 1a concluded with 276 remaining from the initial field of 2601, slightly over 10 percent of the field. Poker gadfly Allen Kessler noted on 2+2 of possible problems if too many players get eliminated Sunday. The 2010 payout structures do not appear to be available on the WSOP site. Using the payout structure from 2009, if the numbers are similar for day 1b, they’ll be very close to the money for day 2 on Monday.

Getting back to the action on the table, Terry Fleischer appears to be the day 1a chip leader with 119,300. Nancy Todd Tyner is the only other player with a six-figure chip stack (103,000). Some recognizable names near the top: Lisa Parsons (61,400), Amarillo Slim (58,700), Tommy Vedes (55,700) and Chris Bjorn (39,800).

Trifecta for Thang?

Thang Luu

Besides day 1b of the 1k, the $1,500 Omaha 8 or better tournament gets underway at 5pm today. Thang Luu is the two-time defending champion of this event, finishing 2nd in the $2,000 Omaha 8 event in 2007. The late start may have an effect on the field, as 918 started this event when it started at noon last year. Check out PokerNews and www.wsop.com to follow the updates and other information about what’s happening.

Photos: Rob Gracie/WSOP and Flipchip/PokerNews

Dr. Pauly and I like to think of ourselves as WSOP vets. This is Pokerati’s 7th Series, and Tao’s 6th. (Though in terms of days at the WSOP he’s still got me trounced.) Combined so far we’ve got 11 years of experience. That’s really not all that impressive when you think about it …

Episode 1: Amazon Reunion
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Episode 2: The Big Room
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In just a few short hours, the 41st World Series of Poker will get underway at 12 noon at the Rio in Las Vegas with the first bracelet event, the $500 Casino Employees event. This will be followed at 5pm with the $50,000 Players’ Championship, consisting of HORSE, no-limit holdem, pot-limit Omaha, and 2-7 triple draw lowball with no-limit holdem being played at the final table.

Friday preview

Last year’s Casino Employee’s winner was Andrew Cohen, a bartender at the Palms, who won $83,833 in a field of 866 players. Hopefully Team Pokerati member John Harris can improve on his 25th place finish last year. This is the first year for the $50,000 Players’ Championship, a five-day event that is replacing the $50,000 HORSE event that was held the previous four years. David Bach won what appears to be the final $50,000 HORSE event last year, besting a field of 95 to earn $1,276,806. The Chip Reese trophy that was given to the HORSE winner will now go to the Players’ Championship winner.

Where to find information

For those looking for updates, the official WSOP site will have live updates powered by PokerNews. This year, the WSOP.com site will also be making various tournament information available to everyone, including entry lists, end of day chip counts, tournament reports from WSOP media director Nolan Dalla, as well as the media guide. CardPlayer, Bluff Magazine, PokerListings, PokerRoad, ESPN.com’s poker section and other poker media outlets (like Pauly) will provide updates, reports, gossip, video segments and other stuff for the poker enthusiast.

2010 WSOP storylines

With 56 bracelets up for grabs over the next seven weeks (with the final one decided in November), there’s plenty of interesting angles to find in this year’s WSOP:

Does the Year of the Woman continue? With the wins of Annie Duke at the NBC Heads-Up, Vanessa Selbst at NAPT Mohegan Sun and Liv Boeree at EPT San Remo, the poker media is anticipating a breakout WSOP for women. The last year more than one woman won an open bracelet event was in 2004 (Annie Duke, Kathy Liebert and Cyndy Violette).

How will Annette Obrestad perform? This is Annette’s first year she can actually play at the WSOP in Las Vegas instead of being a spectator limited to the hallway, a moment that has been eagerly anticipated by the poker community since she won the 2007 WSOP Europe Main Event at 18. She’ll be the most followed, scrutinized, criticized, fawned over, etc. newcomer of this year’s group of WSOP newbies.

How will the UIGEA affect the WSOP? With the June 1 deadline rapidly approaching, online sites and players are wondering what will happen in the next few weeks. Does the US Department of Justice swoop down on the Rio and arrest Team Full Tilt? Will players not be able to get their funds in time for the Main Event? Will it be business as usual, with no noticeable drop in attendance at the Rio?

Betting on Bracelets Bracelet bets for big money is not reserved to Phil Ivey and his fellow pros. Justin Bonomo was laying 10 to 1 (1k minimum to Justin’s 10k) that at least one person from a list of people living at Panorama Towers will win a bracelet at the WSOP. Bonomo offered the same bet last year, laying 7 to 1, and Greg Mueller’s two bracelets had Bonomo winning his bet. The big Phil Ivey bet this year is with Howard Lederer: Ivey has the 2010-12 WSOPs to win two bracelets, WSOPE bracelets count only towards making the bet a push, for $5 million. Talk of other bets Ivey will surely hit the rumor mill over the coming weeks.

More updates to come during the next few weeks, and good luck to all the players.