Brad Libson Leads Day 1 of Event #33: $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em
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BOOM!
That's exactly what these $1k World Series of Poker (WSOP) tournaments feel like…supersonic!
2,795 players filled the Brasilia room and significant parts of the Pavilion and Amazon rooms. Then before you could say, "6-levels," 30% of the field had vanished into the ether like dew in the face of the rising sun. 5-levels later and only 231 players remained in the pursuance of WSOP gold. There is still plenty of poker to be played before that sliver of gold is slipped into somebody's slinky wrist, but in the meantime the man in pole position on the Day 2 grid will be Brad Libson who wrote the magic number 117,000 on his plastic bag.
Let's take you through the Day 1 journey as we saw it through the eyes of PokerNews…
As usual with large field WSOP events, all of the early noise surrounded who was leaving and not who was chip building. Leo Margets was in no mood to mess about when she got all of her chips into the middle in the first few hands. She won that pot but was not so fortunate a level later when she was eliminated 
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and left the tournament. Other notable female players that left us in the pre-dinner arguments were the multi-talented Kara Scott, WSOP bracelet holder Kathy Liebert and PokerNews very own Mrs Kristy Arnett.
Sorel Mizzi, Roberto Romanello, John Eames, Jonathon Kalmar & Chris Moorman were some of the top males heading for an early bath, whilst at the other end WSOP bracelet holders Athanasios Polychronopoulos and Jonathan Duhamel were sharing the same table and the one and two spots on the early leader board. Duhamel eliminating the legendary Hendon Mobster Barny Boatman (or was it Barry?) in a house over house extravaganza of a hand.
8 times WSOP bracelet winner, Erik Seidel, tripled up when he flopped a set of nines when down to a mere 575 chips, Dave Sands, Greg Raymer, Barry Greenstein, Joseph Cheong and Jeff Madsen all left, and by the time we had reached dinner a few players started to try and break away from the rest of the pack - notably Eric Price, Jeff Sluzinski, Tim Ryan and Kim Pham.
After the dinner break Dylan Hortin put the brakes on the runaway train that was two-time WSOP bracelet winner Richard Hughes in an all-in pre flop 
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disagreement, WSOP bracelet holder Mark Radoja doubled up when down to fumes and Lauren Kling fired three barrels of second-best cards into the welcoming arms of Chris Dombrowski.
Then as we entered Level 9 the chip stacks started to grow just like beanstalks planted by Jack. Several players started to break away from the rest of the group and they included William Chao who made a hero call to eliminate Jared Jaffe thus moving up to 78,000, Andy Bradshaw (65,000), who told us that he didn't really want to play because the cues were too long, and only did so because is missus would believe he was only over here to go on the lash (get drunk) - but no-one had more than Thomas Fuller who became the first man to hit the 100,000 mark.
The pace quickened and 2,795 players became 298 players in no time. As the clock slowly rolled into the last level of the night the money bubble burst and the news was greeted with it's customary round of applause. As per usual players started to fall like trees in the Amazon rainforest and we were down to the next pay jump with everyone guaranteed $2,012. Amongst the high profile casualties was Jonathan Duhamel, who according to his table mates, had a terrible run of luck that accumulated with him running his last 10,000 - and pocket deuces - into the pocket kings of his opponent.
At the top end of the charts the top spot became a sprint between Brad Libson (117,000), Thomas Fuller (103,000) and Eric Price (115,300) with Libson just pipping Price to the post in a photo finish.
Other notables through to Day 2 include Erik Seidel (30,800), Mark Radoja (28,000), Faraz Jaka, (81,900), Humberto Brenes (27,700) and Andy Frankenberger (35,400).