2010 World Series of Poker Main Event Day 1a report

The preliminary events are over, and the Main Event is underway, which means that the hardcore poker fans are no longer the only people interested in the 2010 World Series of Poker.  The Main Event will take 12 days to play down to the final table -the final table participants will then reconvene in November for two more days of play-including four separate starting days to allow event officials to handle the massive field logistically.

Day 1a saw a total of 1,125 players take to the tables at the Rio. The 1,125 players is a less than stellar turnout, but Day 1a is typically the least attended day of the four, and it will take strong turnouts on the remaining three starting days to reach the hoped for 7,000 entrants number WSOP officials are hoping for.

Even with the new registration rules -which are in place to eliminate last year’s problem of too many players registering for a single day-Day 1a’s attendance must be seen as a disappointment, hopefully there will not be a huge disparity when the starting days are combined into two separate Day 2’s -this was once again another problem the WSOP faced last year.

The day started with a bang as 2004 WSOP Main Event Champion, Greg Raymer, got the action underway with the now infamous poker phrase “Shuffle Up and Deal!” And it was Raymer who made the first headlines of the day when he got involved in a huge pot early on: The money went in on the flop with Raymer holding Top-Pair and Flush Draw against his opponent’s Middle Set. Unfortunately for Raymer the board offered no help and the former World Champion was crippled, and eliminated soon thereafter.

In addition to Raymer a number of other big names decided to take part on Day 1a and were also unable to bag their chips at the end of the night, including Chino Rheem, Nick Shulman, “The Mad Genius of Poker” Mike Caro, Victor Ramdin and actor Ray Romano

Some big names that made it through to Day 2a, and will be back in action on Friday are Mike Mizrachi with a massive 140k chip-stack, Barry Shulman, 2003 Main Event Champion Chris Moneymaker, John Hennigan, Maria Ho, Scott Seiver, Tony Korfman,  and Vitaly Lunkin: All of whom are in the top 100 chip-counts.

In all a total of 907 players will be back on Friday to take part in Day 2a (along with the players from Day 1c) before the field is combined on Monday July 12^th.