WSOP Main Event Day 1 Wrap-up Reports
by Bodog Poker | Jul 7 2009
The four Day 1's at the
World Series of Poker Main Event are finally complete. Main Event '09 ended up with 6,494 players entered and a total prize pool of $61,043,600. That means that every player at the final table in November will become a millionaire. These are the payouts for the top money prizes: 1st -- $8,546,435, 2nd -- $5,182,601, 3rd -- $3,479,485, 4th -- $2,502,787, 5th -- $1,953,395, 6th -- $1,587,133, 7th -- $1,404,002, 8th -- $1,300,228, 9th -- $1,263,602, 10th-12th -- $896,730, 13th-15th -- $633,022, 16th-18th -- $500,557.
On Day 1-a there were 1,116 entrants who decided to start their action on the first day. Lots of celebrities were floating around, including Jennifer Tilly and Gabe Kaplan, rapper Nelly, Orel Hershiser, and funnymen Brad Garrett and Jason Alexander. One didn't have to look too far to see a big name pro player sitting at a table; some big names on the first pday were Johnny Chan, Jerry Yang, Jason Mercier, Vitaly Lunkin, Roland de Wolfe, Keven "Stammdog" Stammen, John Phan, Freddy Deeb, Steve Billirakis, Allen Cunningham, and Andy Bloch. At the end of the night, it was Redmond Lee at the top of the leaderboard, filling his bag with 134,275 worth of chips. Among the other big stacks waiting for Day 2 are Jason Riesenberg (93,650), Jason Alexander (89,575), Lex Veldhuis (84,000), and Eli Elezra (83,375).
Day 1-b had fewer entrants than Day 1-a attracted, with only 873 players putting up the $10K entry fee to play. The Fourth of July holiday was likely the main reason for the decline in entrants, but there were still lots of players and some great action. Doyle Brunson was in attendance and got the action underway by announcing to the crowd to "Shuffle Up and Deal" before he took his seat. Chris Moneymaker and Mike Matusow were among some of the big poker names on Day 1-b. Hoyt Corkins, Amarillo Slim, Cristiano Dragomir, Carlos Mortensen, Barry Greenstein, Chris Ferguson, David "The Dragon" Pham, Alex Kravchenko, and Greg Raymer were just a few of the other notables that could seen. By the end of the day it was mainly amateurs at the top of the leaderboard, with the leaders looking like this: Brandon Demes (137075), Andrew Gaw (126100), Nick Maimone (122500), Samer Rahman (122400), Max Casao (121100), and Jim Bookstaff (120750).
Day 1-c saw 1,696 players deciding to play. This day also saw some big names like Negreanu, Hellmuth, and Lederer, as well as the hottest running player of the
2009 WSOP, Jeffery Lisandro. By the end of the day it was Lisandro who had put together another big stack of 145,000. With an extra level of play on this day, the leaders had more chips than those from previous days. The other leaders were: Joe Cada (187225), Tyler Patterson (179500), Sebastian Stier (160050), Chance Kornuth (150025), and Ariel 'DaEvils' Schneller (147275).
Day 1-d broke all records for a Day 1 with nearly three thousand players buying in. At last look Troy Webber was leading the field with 220,000 in chips. Other notables include Josh Arieh (132,000), Dutch Boyd (120,000), Betrand Grospellier (114,000), JC Tran (113,000), Phil Ivey (105,000), and David Benyamine (102,000).
Day 2's will play out on July 7th and 8th, then there will be a break on the 9th for media day. The tournament will resume on the 10th and will play down until only the final nine are left sometime on July 15th.
