It's quiet in here. Very, very quiet. We imagine that the pressure of what these players can potentially accomplish is keeping their lips zipped for now. Winning a few early pots helps to relieve that tension. John Racener has his first chips. He opened to 275,000 from early position and was called by Michiel Sijpkens. Sijpkens check-folded to a bet of 385,000 on a coordinated flop of .
By the way, if our information is accurate, Sijpkens could become the youngest Main Event champion ever if he were to go the distance from here. He would eclipse the mark -- set just last year by Joe Cada -- by approximately five months.
On the first hand of the day (ahem, at the outer table), Pascal LeFrancois opened to 300,000 from late position, and action folded to Adam "Roothlus" Levy in the small blind. He three-bet to 800,000 with a tidy stack of eight lavender chips, and LeFrancois went into the tank for a couple minutes. He asked Roothlus for his count. When he heard the number, he shook his head and sent his cards into the muck
On the first hand of the day, Redmond Lee opened for 310,000 from late position. Action passed to Michael Mizrachi in the small blind. His re-raise to 650,000 took down the pot. Mizrachi showed the table .
On the very first hand of the day, Ronnie Bardah had the button. Action folded to him and he moved all in for 2.515 million. Both blinds folded and Bardah picked up the blinds and antes.
Jack Effel got on the mic and kept his remarks mercifully short. He mentioned an MMA fight card being hosted tonight at the Rio and then got down to business.
"In the true fighting spirit that all of our remaining players share today, we'd like to invite an honored guest today to kick off the last day of the WSOP Main Event before November," said Effel. He then introduced MMA fighter Kevin "the Monster" Randleman, a former UFC heavyweight champion.
"You guys are all very talented," said Randleman. "I hope you guys have good luck along with that talent. Dealers, shuffle up and deal!"
With that, cards are in the air. 93 minutes remain in the level.
Upon removing their chips from the bags, David Baker and Matthew Bucaric got some chips mixed up. The chips that were left in between them were unclaimed and they couldn't quite remember whose they were. The tournament staff came over and verified their official end-of-day chip counts with us before going back to assist the players in getting their stacks right before play kicked off.
Matt Affleck may be doing a lot of squinting today. He apparently lost his glasses since yesterday. WSOP Media Director got on the mic and asked everyone to "look around" to try to find his glasses. "Between 150 of us in here, we should be able to locate them," said Dalla.
Players are in their seats, unbagging and stacking chips. Ty Stewart informed the players at each table, "You are all television characters today." He expanded from there to remind them that they are not allowed to add, change or remove any logos from now until the end of the day. Anyone who does so will risk incurring a penalty.
We expect Jack Effel on the mic to make the opening remarks in a few minutes.
Here we are, Poker World. It's taken almost a fortnight for us to get here. Way back on July 5, the first flight of hopefuls -- more than 1,200 in total -- sat down for Day 1a of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. Now, 12 days later, the full field of 7,319 players has been condensed, consolidated, whittled down, and crystallized into 27 players who are one last day away from a berth in the November Nine.
Two players each already have more than 10% of the chips in play. Soi Nguyen and chip leader Joseph Cheong have a huge advantage against the rest of the field. They can't necessarily fold their way to the November Nine, but both have to be considered prohibitive favorites to dominate their respective tables today and secure a date in November in the Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio.
The rest of the field has some work to do. We're not playing favorites, but we can't help but be intrigued by the story of Michael "the Grinder" Mizrachi. He won the $50,000 Player's Championship to start the 2010 WSOP. Can he end the 2010 WSOP having survived the ultimate grind by making it to the November Nine?
We can't even count out the player in the Dank Position -- Hasan Habib. Habib has one previous bracelet in 2004. Could this be the year he wins his second? And what of two-time bracelet winner Scott Clements? As yesterday made patently clear, truly anything can happen between now and the end of the day.
Last year everyone in the media expected Day 8 to go into the wee hours of the morning, and then were shocked when play wrapped up by midnight. This year we're not making any predictions. All we can tell you is that we'll be here until the bags come out again, from the first riffle of the cards to the last river dealt at the 2010 WSOP -- at least, until November.
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