That's it! The tournament clock has stopped and Day 1 action has come to an end.
There are 77 steps between the press room and the casino, and I have made that trip approximately 24 times since the start of the day - that's 1848 steps. I feel like Rocky. My feet feel like rocks. I am going back to the hotel to stick my feet in some hot water.
In any case, there are approximately 154 players remaining - we won't know the official count until the tournament staff bags up all of the chips. We'll have the top ten chip stacks posted shortly.
Be sure to tune in tomorrow at 2 p.m. local time when play resumes.
As the end of the day approaches, so have the tournament lives of many hopefuls. Casually walking through the tournament area, I witnessed the following hands:
v.s. all in pre-flop and the eights win a 12,000 chip pot.
Moments later, another player gets his beaten by when the board falls . The loser of the hand was not too happy with the call as he had pushed for 4,600 and the other player called with not much more behind.
Sander Lyloff, winner of the Barcelona leg of this year's EPT tour, just took down a 6,000 pot on the turn with the board showing: . A 3,600 bet, first to speak, was all it took.
During the very first level, WPT winner Surinder Sunar was knocked down to 2,500 in chips. He is still hanging on and currently has 3,500 chips, having reached a peak of 4,500 earlier.
The pace has increased as we enter the sixth and final level of the day. Thomas Wahlroos just increased his stack to 40,000 after he busted a short-stack with his A-Q. The shortie had K-K and called Thomas' pre-flop raise of 800, leaving himself only 1,200 behind. Another caller in late position folded on a low flop, giving Thomas value to call with ace-high, duly catching an ace on the river to win the pot.