Just one starting flight remains at the 2021 World Series of Poker Main Event, but Day 2 isn’t waiting. While Day 1F takes place on Tuesday, so do three Day 2s. And while some may think it would just be Days 1A-1C, it is not. The first Day 2s to play out are Days 1A, 1B, and 1D. So while a few hundred people will end today’s action happy they are moving on to Day 2, hundreds of others will already know they have advanced to Day 3.
Yesterday’s and today’s starting flights were not originally on the schedule. As we have discussed before, there had been very tight travel restrictions on people wanting to enter the United States. But as of yesterday, the harshest of restrictions were lifted, so the WSOP added a couple Day 1s to try to give international players the opportunity to get to Las Vegas and play. And to avoid extending the Main Event those three Day 2s are going on right now while the final Day 1 flight is running.
Day 1E was fairly light, as just 797 people ponied up the $10,000 to play. These extra flights are a bit of an enigma. Would they be really busy because players from outside the US are all rushing to get here, or would they be quiet because everyone who wanted to play already did so and international players didn’t want to make last-second plans?
It was probably somewhere in between. It was the second-smallest day of the five, but not by much – Day 1B had 845 entries. The total field is now at 5,315 with one starting flight to go. If it is similar to Monday’s, the field will at least hit 6,000, which isn’t too bad considering the pandemic.
A couple former Main Event champs, Joe Hachem and Scott Blumstein, made it through Day 1E to Day 2. Hachem, in fact, finished 22nd on the day, going into Wednesday with 186,100 chips. Though Hachem’s Main Event title is his only WSOP bracelet, he did make a tremendous run in the following year’s Main Event, finishing 238th in a record field of 8,773 players. He was the last former Main Event winner remaining in the tournament. Interestingly, Greg Raymer was the last former champ standing when Hachem won his bracelet after being the Main Event winner the previous year.
The chip leader of the fifth starting flight is David Gerassi with 316,100 chips. Close behind him are Kenn Pluard with 307,600 and Conrad De Armas with 302,800.
Day 1F is just getting underway, let’s hope it’s a good one.
2021 World Series of Poker Main Event – Day 1E Chip Leaders
- David Gerassi – 316,100
- Kenn Pluard – 307,600
- Conrad De Armas – 302,800
- James Mendoza – 255,900
- Greg Pohler – 248,500
- Victor Ramdin – 228,300
- Yiming Cao – 228,000
- Ryan Delgros – 223,400
- Craig Chait – 222,400
- Jordan Jayne – 219,200
2021 World Series of Poker Main Event – Overall Day 1 Chip Leaders
- Aleksandr Shevlyakov, 392,600
- Mustapha Kanit, 363,500
- Rittie Chuaprasert, 345,700
- Adedapo Ajayi – 340,900
- Zachary Grech – 318,400
- David Gerassi – 316,100
- Kenn Pluard – 307,600
- Conrad De Armas – 302,800
- David Fong, 298,500
- Steve Foutty, 287,000
Image credit: PokerGO.com
