Day One of the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) is in the books, with Saturday’s schedule featuring the continuation of one of its premier events and a second tournament whose field size should challenge one of the WSOP’s all-time records.
On Friday, the prestigious $50,000 Player’s Championship took center stage at the Rio with a pro-laden field of 116 players. The largest buy-in event at the WSOP, the prize pool of $5.6 million will be chopped up among 16 players. The eventual champion takes home $1.5 million, a WSOP bracelet, and the coveted Chip Reese Memorial Trophy
The Player’s Championship – consisting of an Eight Game format featuring Deuce to Seven Triple Draw, Limit Hold’em, Omaha Hi/Lo, Razz, Stud, Stud Hi/Lo, No Limit Hold’em, and Pot Limit Omaha – is the replacement for the $50,000 HORSE Championship that has been contested over the past four years. Previous champions include Reese, Freddy Deeb, Scotty Nguyen, and David Bach.
The battle from the start was grueling, with the 3x starting stacks allowing for extremely skillful play. Despite this, there were eliminations over the span of play on Friday that claimed some notable victims. Eleven players from the original starting field were eliminated by the end of action early Saturday morning, with poker pros Dan Shak, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Brian Townsend, and 2009 WSOP double bracelet winner Greg “FBT” Mueller the most notable of the dismissals.
When the chips fly on Day Two of the Players’ Championship at 3:00pm PT, Sweden’s Erik “Erik123” Sagstrom will lead a host of American players with a 329,100 chip stack. Arranged behind him are several strong challengers including the legendary Doyle Brunson (269,200), Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo (257,300), Steve “MrSmokey1” Billirakis (251,900), “Miami” John Cernuto (251,400), Barry Greenstein (240,100), and Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi (230,100).
While it didn’t garner the same attention as the Players’ Championship, the traditional starting tournament for the WSOP, the $500 Casino Employees Event, also was in action in the Rio on Friday. 721 players (down from last year’s 866 entrants) from the casino industry around the world started this year’s event, with the Bellagio’s noted tournament director Jack McClelland as one of the featured players and a Day One survivor. By the end of play on Friday, the field was whittled down to 53 competitors, who will be coming back on Saturday to award the first bracelet of the 2010 WSOP.
With these two events continuing play, the Amazon Room and the Pavilion in the Rio will be stretched to their limits as the first $1,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament, Event #3 on the 57-tournament schedule, will take place. When this event was played last year, an astounding 6,012 players came out, making it the largest non-Main Event tournament in WSOP history. As of 10:30am PT on Saturday, over 3,600 poker players had registered for the event.
According to Twitter reports, several players opted to bypass the large buy-in Player’s Championship to conserve bankroll for later events and have decided that the Saturday $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event will be their first action. Such players as 2009 Player of the Year Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin, Full Tilt Poker’s Gavin Smith, “Hollywood” Dave Stann, the apparently “unretired” Shaun Deeb, and UB.com’s Tiffany Michelle are slated to be on the felt Saturday. The field size could contest last year’s record, as with the expansion of the playing arena in the Rio, there is ample room for a 6,000-player field to be seated over two starting days.
Keep it tuned to Poker News Daily for all the latest details as the 41st World Series of Poker.
