Day 1 of Event 54: $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em is a wrap with 265 players bagging their remaining chips. The day saw 3,221 hopefuls come out for the chance at bracelet glory, but as the levels increased the players decreased. The day finished with two players sharing the chip lead, both Jonas Mackoff and Clayton Fletcher finished the day with 148,500.
The money bubble burst in the middle of level 11 with the help of Alex Kravchenko, prompting cheers from all 325 players. Everyone from there on out was going to be walking away with a minimum $1,942.
Dutch Boyd made his presence known, taking a strong chip advantage over the rest of his table early on and maintaining and managed to finish the day in the middle of the pack. Chris Moorman came out of the woodwork late building his starting stack into a mountain of chips. A few other players coming back tomorrow are Justin Schwartz, Huck Seed, Matt Stout, Joey Weissman, and Sofia Lovgren.
All 265 players are expected to return tomorrow at 1:00 PM for Event: 54's restart. Play will consist of playing down until 9 players are left, or until 10 levels have been completed; whatever happens first. Stay tuned here to PokerNews for all your poker updates.
As we enter the final stretch we have 540 players remaining and an average chip stack of 17,894. We have just walked through the Gold section of the Brasilia room and here is the news.
World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet holder, David Diaz, is out. He was eliminated pre flop when his could not find the magical card combination required to beat the of Gionni Demers. Demers who finished 20th in last years Main Event for $302,005 now has 55,000 chips.
Michael Craig has dropped down to 45,000 and Chris Arvanitis remains on a steady 44,000. Joining the top of the chip counts in the Gold Section are Gianluca Rullo (60k) and Jia Liu (60k).
Two main stories from the red section of the Brasilia Room and they both emanate from Table 67. Our first piece of news is a great start for Chris De Maci. It's been a great series for De Maci who picked up $316,308 for his runner-up spot in Event #34: $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha - Six-Handed. Here he is proving he can play with 2 cards as well as 4.
De Maci opened the betting for 450, 1 opponent three-bet to 1,050 and De Maci made the call. The flop was and De Maci called a 875 bet from his opponent. The turn card was the and De Maci's opponent check-raised all-in and De Maci made the call.
De Maci
Opponent
So it was a king or nothing for De Maci's opponent and the was nowhere near regal enough. De Maci moves up to 20,000.
Then a few hands later and we notice Maya Antonius twiddling on her phone as she exited the Brasilia Room. We dashed back to her table and Chris De Maci very kindly furnished us with the following information.
There was a raise to 450 and one caller before Antonius moved all-in for 3825 holding . The initial raiser folded but the caller made the call holding (suited). A queen on the flop and then an ace on the river putting an end to the hopes of Mrs Antonius.
Other players loving life in red are Irish Open Champions Kevin Vandersmissen (15k) and Neil Channing (13k), European Poker Tour (EPT) and World Poker Tour (WPT) champion Andrey Pateychuk (17k), the one and only Chris Moorman (17k) and leading the pack Koen de Visscher (25k).
A recent walk around the structured chaos of the Amazon lead us to Barry Shulman's table where we found him mixing it up with an unknown opponent from middle position. The flop read and Shulman fired out 100. Shulman's opponent in the cut-off countered by raising it to 250. Shulman completed the call and both players were allowed to see the turn.
The on fourth street brought with it a check from Shulman, and a bet of 300 from the cut-off. Shulman again made the call. A on the river saw a repeat of action with Shulman checking, and the cut-off betting out 500. Shulman made the call and was in for some good news.
The cut-off flipped over a measily while Shulman exposed for a pair of jacks. Jacks were best and Shulman was awarded the pot.
A few tables away from Mr. Shulman, sits Mrs. Shulman. Allyn Jaffrey Shulman sits with around 2,400, but probably should be more feared than her larger stacked husband. Mrs. Shulman has already won a $1,000 event this year, and clearly knows what it takes to win a bracelet. Earlier this year Mrs. Shulman took down Event 29: $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold'em Championship.
The field is large and the room is electric, we will see if husband and wife can make a deep run at it today.
The poker history books are going to be re-written today as forty-eight people take their seats to play in the most expensive game of poker ever created. The buy-in is $1 million and the first prize is $18,346,673 - the biggest prize poker has ever seen.
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is the only organisation in the world that could make the Big One For One Drop happen and what makes the WSOP so special is it caters for poker players of all shapes and sizes. You have the $1 million buy-ins for the superstars of world poker - and a few whales - and luckily for the rest of us you have the $1,000 buy-ins for the mere mortals and schools of fish.
So keep a watchful eye on the $1 million - and especially the superb PokerNews coverage - but we will be getting down to the bread and butter of the WSOP to bring you coverage of Event #54: $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em. Last year this competition drew in 4,576 players and the eventual winner was a fantastic poker player - Russia's Maxim Lykov.
As players start to pour in in readiness for the Main Event we are expected another bumper field. So expect coverage from the Brasilia, Amazon and Pavlion today.
This will be a 3-day event with Day 1 consisting of eleven-levels of sixty-minutes play. There will be a fifteen-minute break every 2-levels and a ninety-minute dinner break at the end of level-6.
The action starts at 12:00 PM so please join us at PokerNews for all of the action.
![[user198174]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
could not find the magical card combination required to beat the 
and De Maci called a 875 bet from his opponent. The turn card was the 
and De Maci's opponent check-raised all-in and De Maci made the call.
was nowhere near regal enough. De Maci moves up to 20,000.
. The initial raiser folded but the caller made the call holding 
and Shulman fired out 100. Shulman's opponent in the cut-off countered by raising it to 250. Shulman completed the call and both players were allowed to see the turn.
on fourth street brought with it a check from Shulman, and a bet of 300 from the cut-off. Shulman again made the call. A 
on the river saw a repeat of action with Shulman checking, and the cut-off betting out 500. Shulman made the call and was in for some good news.
while Shulman exposed 
for a pair of jacks. Jacks were best and Shulman was awarded the pot.
