Day 1 of the $25,000 World Poker Tour (WPT) World Poker Championship got underway on Saturday with 188 players taking to the tables at Bellagio in Las Vegas. Christian “charder30” Harder sat atop the leaderboard at the end of five levels of play, with Ali Eslami, Kyle “KJulius10” Julius, Justin Young and Doyle Brunson all close on his heels. Registration will remain open for three levels on Sunday, which should easily boost the entrant total above last year’s number of 195.
Harder, who finished fourth in the 2009 WPT Championship for $571,965, bagged 249,975 chips Saturday evening after claiming the chip lead late in the day. Eslami is making a run at his second victory of 2011 after winning the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit Regional Championship at Harrah’s Rincon for $282,242 in March. He’ll enter Day 2 with 240,475. Julius (237,675), Young (234,575) and Alan Sternberg (233,675) rounded out the top five stacks, with Brunson lurking in sixth (230,000). Players began the tournament with 100,000 chips.
Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul won the biggest pot of the day and enters Day 2 seventh in chips. According to the WPT Live Updates team, Saul called a six-bet preflop shove by Justin Bonomo to create a pot worth more than 270,000. Saul’s kings were in rough shape against Bonomo’s aces, but the board ran out Jd-5s-4d-3c-Ks to give Saul a set on the river and leave Bonomo with just 73,000. Saul finished the day with 229,975.
Also surviving the day was Todd Terry, who made a royal flush late on Day 1. Terry posted via Twitter that he had Ac-Jc on a board of Ax-Qc-Tc-Kc to win the pot and increase his stack to 141,000. He finished play with 140,275.
Other notables advancing to Day 2 with healthy stacks were John Juanda, Michael Mizrachi, Jonathan Little, Phil Laak, Barry Greenstein, Shannon Shorr, Erik Seidel, Sam Trickett, and Eric Baldwin, who finished second in last year’s event. Defending champion David Williams did not play on Saturday but is expected to register on Sunday. He registered late last year and went on to take title and $1,530,537.
Former WPT Championship winners Martin de Kniff, Carlos Mortensen, David Chiu and Yevgeniy Timoshenko were also in the field on Day 1. All but Mortensen advanced, as “El Matador” was eliminated by the flopped full house of Jason Somerville. Others eliminated on Day 1 were Antonio Esfandiari, David Benyamine, Jennifer Tilly, Eric Froelich, Frank Kassela, and Somerville, who was taken out at the hands of Shannon Shorr in the final level.
Play resumes at Noon local time on Sunday and the remaining 170 players are likely to be joined by the defending champ Williams, along with a few more of the game’s biggest names before registration closes at around 5 p.m. Here’s a look at the top 10 stacks heading into the day:
1. Christian Harder — 249,975
2. Ali Eslami — 240,475
3. Kyle Julius — 237,675
4. Justin Young — 234,575
5. Alan Sternberg — 233,675
6. Doyle Brunson — 230,000
7. Kevin Saul — 229,975
8. Masa Kagawa — 229,500
9. Robert Mercer — 222,850
10. Curt Kohlberg — 216,925