When we reached Table 12, the board read . Eugene Todd put out a bet of about 15,000, and an opponent made it 42,000 more. Todd had a pained look on his face as he tanked for a few moments, but he made the call.
His opponent opened up for just ace-high, and Todd tabled for kings full.
"You're my hero," one of the players at the table told the bluffer.
With 10 minutes left in the final level, the announcement was made that four more hands would be played before play would end for the night. Some tables finished more quickly than others, including the one at which both Freddy Deeb and Haralabos Voulgaris sat. As they began counting their chips, readying to bag them, they reflected on their days.
A late run pushed Voulgaris from short-stack status up to 90,000, leaving him in a good mood to end the day. But even though Deeb's situation was relatively poor to Voulgaris, Deeb nonetheless found reason to feel good about things.
"I'm only stuck 3,800!" said Deeb to Voulgaris with a grin. "It's a good day!" That's one way to look at the 11,200 chips he's bagging up. It's a tough spot for the two-time bracelet winner, though better than that of the 550-plus players who aren't around to bag up any chips at night's end.
Amid the bagging of chips happening on all of the other tables, a huge hand developed right before the stoppage of play -- a three-way pot involving Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, Matt Jarvis, and third player.
Mizrachi held and was covered by both of his opponents, one holding and Jarvis with . The flop came and turn the , giving Mizrachi and Jarvis' opponent trip aces. But the river brought the , giving Jarvis a boat and a double knockout.
While Mizrachi leaves the Pavilion, not to return for tomorrow's Day 2, it looks like Jarvis will becoming back as tomorrow's start-of-day leader. He's bagging a cool 303,800.
Day 1 of Event #40 $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em / Six Handed is in the books, and after ten levels of play, our chip leader is 2010 November Niner Matthew Jarvis with 303,800 chips. Jarvis won a huge pot during the last few minutes of play, when he rivered a full house against an overpair and trip aces. The hand pushed his stack above 300,000 chips, and eliminated Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi from the tournament.
Randy Dorfman also boasts a huge stack with 280,000 chips. He won a huge pot against Neil Channing during Level 8, where he flopped two pair against Channing's aces. Dorfman held, and was one of the first players over six figures.
There are a plethora of notables with six-figure stacks. Daniel Negreanu (162,200), Eugene Todd (147,500), and Zach Gruneberg (142,400) all made late surges, and will be looking to chip up even further on Day 2.
The final number of entrants in this event was 732, generating a prizepool of $3,440,400. The winner will receive $808,538, along with bragging rights and of course the WSOP gold bracelet.
Of course every Day 1 comes with waves of casualties, and we lost dozens of notables including, Jason Mercier, Frank Kassela, Eugene Katchalov, Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Allen Bari, Justin Bonomo, Phil Laak, and Erick Lindgren.
The action resumes tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. local time, where we will play ten more levels of poker. Join us as we near a final table, en route to handing out the 40th bracelet of the 2011 WSOP.