It was nearly twelve hours ago that players began to file into the Amazon Room and Pavilion to kick off the second Day 1 of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. After four and a half levels of play, those lucky enough to still have chips in front of them are bagging them up and heading home for the night.
We started the day with 1,489 players. That's nearly 400 more than we had for yesterday's Day 1a. Not only was the entire Amazon room occupied by Main Event entrants, but there were another 450 players who started their day off in the Pavilion. Of those who started out today, it appears that just over 1,000 have been fortunate enough to make it through the day.
As was to be expected, it was another day full of appearances by high-profile players. Those who had their Main Event dreams cut short include Ivan Demidov, Joe Sebok, Erick Lindgren, Justin Bonomo, Bertrand Grospellier, Liv Boeree, Jamie Gold and Arnaud Mattern.
On a more positive note, we have plenty of players gearing up for Day 2. Our chip leader for the day appears to be James Danielson who will kick off his Day 2 with an impressive 201,050 chips. Trailing not far behind are Filippo Candio (167300), Robert Miller (155,225) and Jason DeWitt (149,850).
Some of the fortunate few to break the 100,000-chip mark include Alex Kostritsyn (106,000), Florian Langmann (100,000) and Kido Pham (114,000).
Other notables we can expect to see when they return on Day 2b include Gavin Griffin (97,200), Dan Kelly (74,000), Brandon Cantu (72,000), Johnny Lodden (62,500), Phil Laak (58,000), Jon Turner (63,825), Dan Harrington (45,000), George Lind (11,975), Gavin Smith (40,000) and on it goes...
Completing Day 1 is a goal for many in and of itself. It is, however, just the first necessary step on a long journey down the road to our final table in November. Join us tomorrow for our coverage of Day 1c and stick with us through to the conclusion of poker's grandest tournament!
