What better way to kick one of the most notorious events in Las Vegas than with Wayne Newton? The singer was on hand yesterday to kick off the festivities at the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event. On hand with him was the Universiy of Nevada at Las Vegas marching band, who roused the field of 1,297 players as they settled in for a day of exciting poker.
By the end of the day, nearly half of the players had headed for the door and only 636 will be returning for Day 2. Those who did survive this first day will have to wait four more days before they venture back to the Rio to pick up where they left off. Among those who made it through to Day 2 are actor Ray Romano, Scotty Nguyen, Toto Leonidas, bracelet winner and internet player Blair Hinkle, Mark Vos, and World Poker Tour host Vince Van Patten.
Nguyen was selected to be on the ESPN feature table of the event, but that did not stop Scotty from rolling into the event after the first hand was dealt out. By the end of play, the table boasted other notable faces Anna Wroblewski and Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken. Nguyen ended the day with more chips than the 20,000 he started with, but not by much—at the conclusion of Level 5 of play he had 23,600. Dicken got off to a fast start at the event and spent the early part of the evening near the top of the chip counts. He lost some of the chips he picked up when he was moved to the ESPN table, but still ended the day with a healthy 70,000, which is well above the average stack of around 40,000.
Others who made a lot of progress picking up chips include Day 1A chip leader Mark Garner with 194,900. Notable pro Brandon Adams is not far behind with 176,450. Kido Pham, Mark Vos, Jon “Pearljammer” Turner, and Chau Giang also ended the day towards the top of the chip counts.
Many other known pros were not so fortunate and saw their Main Event come to an end far too soon. Internet whiz kid Tom “durrrr” Dwan found himself short stacked early in the day after his pocket aces were cracked A-8. He was later eliminated before the conclusion of Level One. Ante Up For Africa winner John Hennigan, David Benyamine, Freddy Deeb, Eli Elezra, Chad Brown, and former WSOP champ Dan Harrington, who lost the last of his chips when his top pair of tens ran into pocket kings.
Harrington drew a starting table with a young player who was generating a lot of buzz not because of what he was doing in the event, but what he was wearing to it. Young internet pro Blake Cahail made a prop bet with Blair Hinkle that if one of the two were to win a bracelet this summer, the other would have to play the Main Event in a costume. Since Blair took down one of the preliminary events, Cahail was forced to play today wearing a sparkly blue wizard’s robe and long white beard. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) Blake’s tournament came to an end before play concluded for the day, so we will be seeing a little less magic in the Rio as the event continues.
No official numbers have been released on how many players will end up playing in this year’s Main Event. Despite the somewhat small Day 1A field, many are still predicting registration will exceed last year’s 6,358 person field. It remains to be seen if it will get anywhere close to the record field of 2006.