World Series of Poker - Main Event - End of Day One(s)

We finally have all the players in the 2005 WSOP in one room. This was a Herculean accomplishment, and the Harrah's WSOP, and house staff must be commended for the job they have done. Over the past three days, we have whittled 5,619 players down to 1,864.

The multiple day ones had a lot of things we did expect, like fast play, and even faster bust outs. Surprisingly, we never really had the things that would have been expected like players in space suits, or star actors, or any other kinds of publicity stunts. The World Circus of Poker, as I had dubbed it in an earlier piece, never really came to pass.

Instead, we just had a lot of poker. Some of the poker was a lot better than others, but altogether, this was a much more calm, and reserved 5,600+ field poker tournament than this reporter thought possible. Every once in a while, some knucklehead would stand up and shout some phrase at the top of his lungs that he thought would get him on ESPN, but other than that it was relatively calm. The clatter of chips was the most distinctive sound among the din in the cavernous Rio card room.

After about 36 hours of poker play, we were in one room, and many of the big names in our game were long gone. After going through the 1,864 names (38 pages of names), here are the top ten chip leaders going into day one, plus the notable names my bleary eyes could make out after sifting through the 38 pages. I'm sure I missed someone. To those I missed...Sorry.

Haakon Waerstad $169,200
Sam Farha $156,600
Nguyen Duc $150,250
Lee Watkinson $145,800
Graeme Harrison $142,700
Jeffrey Dziedzic $136,450
Brad Kondracki $131,825
Mike Gambony $130,000
Ed Cardona $129,475
Pete Lawson $124,825
Minneapolis Jim Meehan $103,775
Olga Varkonyi $80,700
Vinny Vinh $74,875
Layne Flack $69,775
Robert Mizrachi $67,625
Paul 'X-22' Magriel $64,125
Gavin Smith $61,925
Liz Lieu $57,900
Kenna James $55,600
Dutch Boyd $55,550
Howard Lederer $55,500
Paul Darden Jr. $55,100
Gavin Griffin $54,600
Young Phan $51,325
Cycalona Gowen $50,475
Paul Wolfe $48,250
Barry Shulman $46,600
John Juanda $46,600
Amir Vahedi $43,975
Martin Feijo $43,200
Greg "Fossilman" Raymer $39,525
Huck Seed $39,025
Michael 'The Grinder' Mizrachi $37,200
Noah 'Exclusive' Boeken $33,300
Gerasimov Kirill $32,900
Chip Reese $30,200
Joe Beevers $29,800
Phil Ivey $28,600
Mike Matusow $27,850
Harley Hall $21,475
Rafe Furst $20,600
Dan Harrington $20,575
Peter Costa $18,650
Jim Feist $18,075
Garry Bush $17,700
Mimi Tran $17,700
Barbara Enright $14,800
Jack McClelland $13,425
Toto Leonidas $12,500
Bradley Berman $10,075
David Sklansky $9,850
Jason Lester $9,675
Chris Moneymaker $7,575
Gus Hansen $7,300
Jeff Shulman $5,225

Also released today were the payouts. The payouts are flattened a bit from years past, as Harrah's wanted to make sure that everyone at the final table got paid at least 1 million dollars. The money in this tournament is bordering on the crazy. How does $304,000 sound? How about $304,000 for finishing 27th place? If you finish 166th, you still get almost $50,000. To put this in perspective, the player who finishes 139th this year will make more than Annie Duke did for finishing 10th five years ago.

The top prize this year is $7,500,000. This is the top prize in the history of any kind of game, sport, or any other prized event. The total prize pool is $52,818,610, roughly equal to seven times the prize pool of next week's British Open. The payouts are below.

1 $7,500,000
2 $4,250,000
3 $2,500,000
4 $2,000,000
5 $1,750,000
6 $1,500,000
7 $1,300,000
8 $1,150,000
9 $1,000,000
10 $600,000
11 $600,000
12 $600,000
13 $400,000
14 $400,000
15 $400,000
16 $350,000
17 $350,000
18 $350,000
19-27 $304,680
28-36 $274,090
37-45 $235,390
46-54 $173,880
55-63 $145,875
64-72 $124,835
73-81 $107,950
82-90 $91,950
91-100 $77,710
101-110 $65,360
111-140 $54,965
141-170 $46,245
171-200 $39,075
201-230 $33,197
231-260 $28,375
261-300 $24,365
301-350 $21,070
351-400 $18,335
401-450 $16,055
451-500 $14,135
501-560 $12,500

Ed note: Party Poker have multiple tables available at every limit, 24 hours a day.

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