Poker in the Bluffs

Good morning out there, and thanks for joining us. Today's live reporting comes to you from our nation's breadbasket, the border regions of Iowa and Nebraska in the middle of the midwest. The Horseshoe Council Bluffs is this week's WSOPC host city, and the first ten ring events have already been put in the books. Today is the big one, though.

The $1,500 Main Event is set to kick off at noon local time, just about 45 minutes from now. That's when we'll welcome the Day 1a crowd to the felt, and a second group will return at 7:00pm for the Day 1b flight. If a player is eliminated in the first flight, they can come back for another shot at the evening session.

This is the sixth consecutive year that the Circuit has come to Council Bluffs, and this is PokerNews third trip to the property. The last time we were here in 2009, the Main Event carried a $5,000 buy-in, and live multi-tabling amateur Jesse Hale final tabled two ring events in the same night. When the Main Event finalists bagged up after Day 2, Hale stuck around to do some work in the PLO side event, eventually finishing in third place. The next day, he bested that effort in a big way by taking down the Main Event in a commanding performance, earning himself six figures and a gold ring.

This time around, the buy-in is a more wallet-friendly $1,500, and we'd expect to see many more than the 67 players that Hale topped in 2009.

The players have just begun to find their way over here to the Whiskey Roadhouse where the bare wooden cocktail tables have been swapped out for rows and rows of pristine green felt.

Play is set to begin at noon.

Tags: Jesse Hale