The walls of the Rio were bursting at the seams as day 1d players totaled 2,461 bringing the total number of entrants in this year's WSOP Main Event to 6,844. That number bests last year's total number of players (6,358) by 486 players. 666 players will cash in this year's event and the winner will receive the second-largest payout in poker history: $9,119,517.
The grandest entrance of this year's WSOP came from Ultimate Bet Pro Phil Hellmuth. Phil was proudly standing up in the front vehicle of a three-truck convoy of camouflage army vehicles. Mark "P0ker H0" Kroon assisted "General" Hellmuth out of his vehicle and ordered the eleven UB Army girls (one for each bracelet he's won) to "Attention!" Hellmuth then walked up and down the line of girls, inspecting them for duty. They met his satisfaction and he made his way up the red carpet as a crowd of curious fans watched.
Phil played today at the ESPN Featured Table along with Mark Seif and Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell of UFC fame. Liddell was knocked out early in the day and Mark Seif ended the day with a little over 16,000, but General Hellmuth played aggressively and was able to chip up to 75,800. He was seen taking down numerous pots with bets and raises that went un-called. Obviously Phil's massive reputation preceeded him and allowed him to steamroll over most of the table.
UB Pro Annie Duke's day didn't go nearly as well. In one hand she opened with a raise to 525 from middle position and got two callers. The flop came Kd9h5s and the big blind checked to Duke, who fired a 1,350 continuation bet. The late-position player folded and the big blind called. The turn was the 3d and again the big blind checked to Duke, who fired out 2,300. The big blind check-raised to 8,300 and Duke was forced to give up her hand.
She was down to 24,500 when another big hand occured. Duke raised to 600 from the button and the big blind called. The flop came AcTc6d and the big blind checked to Duke, who bet 700 and the big blind called. The turn brought the Kd and the big blind led out with a bet of 2,000, and Duke raised to 6,600. The big blind made the call and they saw the river bring the 7h. The big blind checked to Duke who bet out 10,000 and she was called again.
Duke said "You got it," as Pham showed AcTs for two pair, which was good enough to take down the pot. Duke was left with less than 6,000 after the hand and was eliminated soon afterward.
UB Qualifier Gary "Quantock" Thompson had a good day in his very first WSOP event. He said the whole day was "very exciting" and he was able to "chip up a little every level with no all-ins." One of his bigger hands came when he had pocket queens on a jack-high board but his best hand of the day came during the last level of play. Gary held pocket nines and hit huge when the flop came 9-3-3. He said that he slow played it well enough to get a player with pocket jacks to double him up and he ended the day with around 60k.
UltimateBet playerGarrett "GBecks" Beckman got to the Rio today and found out that his table had been chosen to be the secondary feature table and that he would be playing with Phil Ivey. For the first part of the day the table was surrounded by ESPN cameras and curious onlookers but after Phil Ivey busted out the cameras and railbirds seemed to go with him leaving the remaining players to play with a little less pressure. Beckman said that he believe he got food poisioning last night and was not feeling well at all today, but regardless he played a solid game. For a good portion of the afternoon and evening his stack was well below the 20,000 starting mark, dipping as low as 10k, but during the last level of play he doubled up when his ace-high flush bested another players jack-high flush on a paired board. With only a few seconds left of play, the player under the gun raised to 1k and both Beckman and the big blind called to see the flop come Ah9s2d. The big blind checked and the original raiser bet out 1.5k which both Beckman and the big blind called. The turn brought the 5h and action checked to Beckman who bet 3k. Both the other players folded and Beckman, not too worried about giving information to players he would likely not play with again soon, showed his {2s}{2h} for a flopped set to scoop up the last pot of the night. He ended the day with around 53k and will now have two days to recover from being ill before coming back to play in day 2b.
Official chip counts from day 1c were released and a number of UB Qualifiers survived and will join the day 1d players in day 2b on July 9th. Players who made it throught day 1c included: Russell "rdcrsn" Carson 41,375, Troy "nvu2death" Nisbet 40,325, Jesse "flopp_deuces" Kremer 29,750, Nick "John Wayne" Hall 21,250, Roger "Clancy_Wiggum" Morris 20,875, Jerry "Bellyman" Garver 16,525, George "Gnoby" Nobiletti, Brian "NeddyFlander" Garrett 13,900, and Crystal "4cryinoutloud" Scott 6,850. Jordan "scarface_79" Smith was eliminated from play.
