Day 1D Roundup

So the final ‘Day 1’ is over and the (obviously) record field of 8773 players is over halved. The 3,500 or so who play Days 1A and 1B would still be a huge starting field for any tournament.

Let’s get a few of the 1300ish eliminations out of the way: Lyle Berman, Eric Seidel, Erick Lindgren, 2003 Champion Chris Moneymaker are all gone, along with 50K H.O.R.S.E. winner Chip Reese. Of the Americans left in, Jordan Rich would make a great Moneymaker, as it were, if he took down the just announced first prize of $12,000. In total 878 players will be paid, although with various prizes on offer for the bubble finisher (and even the 9 finishers before him or her) it’s likely they will pick up more than the guys who just make it into the official money. He finishes on $101,100. Cyndy Violette got up to 46,300 whilst Internet star Darrell Dicken aka Gigabet carries his online pedigree through to the live stage finishing on 95,025. Hung Tran finishes the day as leader with $177,475.

Outside of the States, no-one has overtaken Richard Gryko but Joe Hachem is on track for another great World Series, looking to repeat or better Greg Raymer’s attempted defence of the title last year, finishing on $86,950. Mikael Thuritz close behind on $86,050 was the top European of the day. Peter Costa has $29,075, Surinder Sundar 51,525. Tony Cascarino can play a bit and finishes on $28,850. Lennox Lewis can’t and is knocked out, together with Max Pescatori, Isabelle Mercier, Jani Sointula, Don O’Dea and Marcel Luske.

At dinner, Barny, who was at Brian Zembic’s table (that’s the guy who got breast implants to win a bet and decided he liked them so much he’d keep them!) was in good spirits on 25,000 and trying to pep up Ross, telling him he’d go on a rush soon. “Yeah – right out of the door” was Ross’ response. He was only joking of course and returned to do his best with his remaining 3,500 but it wasn’t to be. Ram had already been eliminated very early in the day, apparently not too bothered, he was probably glad to be out of the $10,000 entry tournament so he could get back to gambling for real money. After dinner Barny continued where he left off, getting his stack up to a well above average 51,700 to bag up at the end of the night, he plays again on day 2B.

One of the real lows of last year’s WSOP was the introduction of the absurd and, quite frankly, pathetic ‘F-Bomb’ rule. I don’t need to expand on my feelings here as Barny has summed up matters beautifully in his article F Is For Farce – if you haven’t read it, you really must. The only thing worse than a bad rule is a bad rule which is haphazardly enforced. That’s what’s happening this year, players are swearing (and loudly) and rarely if ever being penalised. Some players could be spending more time in the sin bin than at the tables if the dealers were taking notice. This is despite the announcement being made at the start of every tournament about it. I hope I’m wrong but I have a horrible feeling that towards the end of the tournament when the ESPN cameras are rolling someone is going to be penalised and lose a huge amount of money as a result. I hope I’m wrong and the floor has taken the active decision to drop the rule, despite the announcements to the contrary.

For all the finishing chip counts for Day 1, check here.