Brito and Gilbert Bag Big Stacks as Ivey and Hellmuth Cruise Through Day 1 of the Deepstack
The first-ever Event #37: $800 Deep Stack No-Limit Hold’em started out with around 1,000 players registered by the time cards were in the air around 11 a.m. local time. By the end of registration, that number had swelled to an incredible 2,808 players, all with the same exact goal of taking down the event to claim the WSOP bracelet. At the end of 15 levels of play, Jose Brito (776,000), Benjamin Gilbert (577,500) and Marco Bognanni (512,000) would bag some of the biggest stacks of day.
As expected, the day saw the usual mix of recreational and professional players, with many notables taking a seat throughout the day. Some, such as Barry Greenstein, Kitty Kuo,Kenna James, Sean Yu and Phil Hellmuth joined the field earlier in the day, while others like Phil Ivey, David Williams, Michael Mizrachi, and Kathy Liebert took advantage of the late registration option. Jesse Sylvia,Valentin Vornicu, Ali Imsirovic, Christian Harder and Keven Stammen all got in just before registration closed for the day.
Unfortunately, Gold, Kuo, Pahuja, Williams and Mizrachi would be among those players that failed to bag at the end of play on Day 1, but Phil Ivey (260,000), Phil Hellmuth (231,000), and Jesse Sylvia (186,000), along with Elio Fox (444,000) and Manig Loeser (340,500) will be among the 730 players returning to play on Day 2 with high hopes of adding this event's WSOP bracelet to their list of poker accomplishments.
The top 422 players will make the money, with a min-cash worth $1,185, but of course, everyone will be playing for the gold bracelet and the $297,537 in cash that comes with it.
Day 2 resumes at 12 p.m. local time and will restart at level 16, with blinds at 2,500/5,000 and a 5,000 big blind ante. The players will play down until six remain and Pokernews team will be there from when the first card is dealt until the last card hits the felt.