Day 1a is History
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Play began at high noon with the first round of 1,116 players taking their seats to begin this long quest for glory. As expected, we had a homogeneous mix of top-tier pros and hopeful amateurs, and there's about a one-in-four chance that our 2009 Main Event Champion was in the room somewhere today. Among those who chose the first starting day were former World Champions Johnny Chan and Jerry Yang, 2009 bracelet winners Jason Mercier, Vitaly Lunkin, Roland de Wolfe, Greg Mueller, Keven "Stammdog" Stammen, Jordan Smith and a whole grab bag of A-list pros. Also in the field were a slew of faces from the entertainment world: baseball pitcher Orel Hershiser, actors-turned-pro Jennifer Tilly and Gabe Kaplan, rapper Nelly, and funnymen Brad Garrett and Jason Alexander.
Along the way, a number of notables found an early end to their Series. John Phan, Jan Von Halle, Davidi Kitai, Nick Frangos, Freddy Deeb, Matt Glantz, Mark Vos, Pieter de Korver, Isaac Haxton, David Grey, Steve Billirakis, Allen Cunningham, and Andy Bloch have all had their World Series cut short on Day 1 of this final event.
At the end of the night, it looks like
Redmond Lee has worked his way to the top of the leader board, stuffing his bag with 134,275 technicolor chips. Among the other big stacks are Jason Riesenberg (93,650), Jason Alexander (89,575), Lex Veldhuis (84,000), and Eli Elezra (83,375).
The next group of Main Eventers will be here at noon tomorrow to try their luck at their own Day 1. If history is any indication, the number of runners should be a tad lower tomorrow as it's the Fourth of July. Thanks for joining us here today, and we hope you'll join us right back here tomorrow as we continue this epic. Until then, goodnight from the Rio!