Event #54: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em Day 1b | 2010 World Series of Poker

Event #54: $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em

Day 1b Started

07-02-2010 10:26 UTC-7

Here Comes Day 1b

Shamus

Welcome to Day 1b of Event #54, the last of six open-field $1,000 no-limit hold'em events at this year's WSOP.

Yesterday more than 2,300 players showed up to take their shot at this one, with only 331 surviving to tomorrow's Day 2. Play was stopped last night in the middle of Level 9 so as to prevent the tourney from reaching the money prior to the field combining on Day 2, and that is what will happen again today for those registering to play Day 1b.

Some of the prize pools for these $1K events have been quite large. For the most part, the winners of each have taken home around half a million dollars to go with their shiny gold bracelets. The largest field and prize pool of these $1K events was for the first one -- Event #3 -- which saw 4,345 players enter and Aadam Daya win $625,872 for coming out on top.

Registration for Event #54 will remain open until the start of Level 3, so we'll keep an eye on that entrant total and see if this one challenges Event #3's numbers.

Come back at noon local time when the action begins!

Level: 1

Blinds: 25/25

Ante: 0

07-02-2010 12:04 UTC-7

Cards in the Air

Shamus

Tournament Director Jack Effel has delivered all of the usual announcements and has instructed dealers to start dealing the first hands of Day 1b.

As Effel noted, players will be playing until we reach about the 35-minute mark of Level 9 today -- as was done yesterday for Day 1a -- at which point they'll stop and those surviving will return for tomorrow's Day 2.

07-02-2010 12:15 UTC-7

Early Birds

Shamus

Tables are set up throughout the spacious Pavilion Room, and there are still a lot of empty seats, so we're expecting players to keep arriving throughout these first couple of levels.

Some of those here for the first hands of Level 1 include Nam Le, Pat Pezzin, Raymond Rahme, Christina Lindley, J.C. Tran, John Monnette, and Daryll Fish. Barry Shulman and Theo Tran are here, too, sitting next to each other, in fact.

We've also spotted a couple of 2010 WSOP bracelet winners so far among today's field -- Men Nguyen, winner of Event #10, the $10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship, and Valdemar Kwaysser, who took down Event #38, the $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em Championship.

07-02-2010 12:26 UTC-7

Le Picks Wrong Spot

[user80015]

Tommy Le was greeted on his arrival to the table with a preflop raise of 325 confronting him.

Le wasn't one to sit back and take it on the chin, and consequently raised the action to 825.

Unfortunately for Le it was bad timing as his opponent quickly fired 2,825 total to prompt a quick muck from Le as he slipped to 1,900 in the early goings.

Tags: Tommy Le

07-02-2010 12:29 UTC-7

Gorilla in Our Midst

Shamus

As we were making the first round of the Pavilion, we heard someone wish good luck to his friend from the rail as he took his seat at the table.

"Good luck, monkey man," he said. Didn't think too much of it until we saw the player to whom the well-wishing was addressed.

The player is Otto Fabius, and he's come today dressed in a full-body gorilla suit.

He's even brought a couple of bananas.

Tags: Otto Fabius

07-02-2010 12:38 UTC-7

Le-gged

[user80015]

Taking another stroll around the Pavilion Room we found Tommy Le's chair empty.

Approaching the table to ask some of his fellow ex-players, they informed us that one player had a full house and another trips as Le's cards hit the muck as his chips were pushed elsewhere.

Tags: Tommy Le