Henning Granstad finished a frenzied Main Event Day 1c as the chip leader with 249,950 as play concluded Saturday night. Granstad surpassed Day 1a chip leader Mark Garner’s 194,900 to become the overall leader going into Day 2.
David Singer (119,425 chips), Brad Booth (110,825), Evelyn Ng (110,225) and Nenad Medic (93,200) are some of the big names near the top of the leaderboard as 1,026 of the original 1,926 players made it through to Day 2b, which will start up again on Wednesday, July 9. Other noteworthy players that survived were Jeff Madsen, Isabelle Mercier, Mike Matusow, Bill Chen, Sammy Farha and John Juanda.
Five former WSOP Main Event Champions played on Saturday, including Brad Daugherty (1991), Jim Bechtel (1993), Huck Seed (1996), Chris Moneymaker (2003) and Joe Hachem (1995). Hachem was seated at one of the ESPN featured tables for all of Saturday and was able to advance to Day 2 along with Daugherty and Moneymaker. Seed, however, was one of the very first players eliminated. He flopped trip sevens and got all of his chips in on the turn, only to find out that an opponent also had trip sevens but with a higher kicker. Seed lasted only 17 minutes.
Hachem managed to find a little luck on the way. He moved all in with an overpair to the board (tens) and was up against a set of eights. The former champ made a set of tens on the river to stay alive and will go into Day 2 as a short stack with 13,000.
One of the nice moments of Day 1c was the sighting of Former U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato, who is now the head of the Poker Player’s Alliance. D’Amato sat and watched Mike Matusow at the ESPN featured table for awhile before making the rounds in the Amazon Room to greet and chat with players. D’Amata and the PPA are doing their best to protect and preserve the rights of poker players.
Sabyl Landrum, who was the last woman standing at the 2007 Main Event, was eliminated just before play ended Saturday night. Through the first three days, an estimated total of 129 women have played the Main Event. That amount should be close to 200 once a finally tally is done following Day 1d.
Clnie Gowen spent part of Day 1c as the overall chip leader as she sprinted out of the gates with more than 60,000 chips in the first two levels. She took a big hit on the final hand of the evening, however, losing a pot worth 80,000 to Diren Yildizet to cut her stack down to 17,825. Evelyn Ng has the highest chip count of any female so far in the Main Event.
Day 1d will begin on Sunday and the largest field to date is expected and it is the final day of registration. Player’s expected in attendance include Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Allen Cunningham and 2008 Main Event Champion Jerry Yang. Play will commence at around noon PT.
