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

July 10, 2005

John Caldwell

World Series of Poker - Main Event - End of Day One(s) 0001

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