Day 1d: The Final Flight Takes Off at Noon
It's almost time for the final starting day of the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event. Yesterday was Day 1c and the largest starting day of the three so far with 2,181 players coming out to action. Day 1d is always the largest, so we can expect the numbers to be massive here today. Many WSOP officials are saying that the total size of today's final starting flight will be well over 3,000. A few even commented that they should cap out at around 4,100. The total field size so far is 4,063 entrants.
Fred Berger emerged as chip leader after Day 1a with 209,500 in chips. After Day 1b, Ben Lamb bagged the most with 188,925. After Day 1c, Kevin Song ended with 163,325. It's interesting to note that Berger is the overall chip leader so far after playing in the starting day with the least amount of players (897). From there, the larger the starting the field, the smaller the chip leader's stack at the end of the day. If that trend sticks today, the Day 1d chip leader will finish with the least amount of the four Day 1 chip leaders. As stated before, no overall Day 1 chip leader has ever gone on to win the WSOP Main Event. Joe Cada was Day 1c chip leader in 2009, but he was far from the overall leader entering the Day 2s.
Song, the leader from yesterday's flight, is a gold bracelet winner and has plenty of solid results on the WSOP felt. His bracelet win came back in 1997 in the $2,000 Limit Hold'em event. For that win, Song earned $397,120 in prize money. He holds $848,596 in WSOP all-time earnings and over $3.275 million in career tournament earnings. He has eight WSOP final tables. His ending stack is good enough for fifth on the overall leader board.
Overall Top Five Chip Stacks
| Place | Player | Chips | Starting Day |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fred Berger | 209,500 | 1a |
| 2 | Ben Lamb | 188,925 | 1b |
| 3 | Shane Sigsbee | 182,600 | 1a |
| 4 | Andrew Hinrichsen | 175,480* | 1b |
| 5 | Kevin Song | 163,325 | 1c |
*Hinrichsen's chip count has an error because there is no way to have 175,480 in chips due to the smallest domination chip being 25. This is his official chip count as given by the WSOP.
Play kicks off today at 12:00 PM PT again and it's going to be an exhilarating day of poker. As always with Day 1d, there will be hundreds and hundreds of big names in the field as they like to wait until the last starting day to play. Many of them enjoy playing without a break before their Day 2w while others enjoy how large the field size is.
Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for all of the live coverage straight from the Rio. Players will be spread out across both the Pavilion and Amazon Room, but we'll be scouring both all day long. While you wait, check out the July 10th update video from our very own Lynn Gilmartin. We apologize in advance for our lack of dance skills.