A field of 639 players had to be split into two Day One’s, and produced a staggering prize pool of $15,495,750 and a top prize of $3,970,415, the biggest prize ever outside of the World Series of Poker main-event.
As you’d expect the WPT’s flagship tournament attracted all of the biggest names in poker, with the following poker superstars spotted on Day One A alone: Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, WSOP Champion Jamie Gold, defending champion Joe Bartholdi, Victor Ramdin, Jeff Madsen, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Dan Harrington, Fabrice Soulier, Gavin Smith, Barny Boatman, T.J. Cloutier, Kristy Gazes, Harry Demetriou, Hoyt Corkins, Joe Sebok, Padraig Parkinson, Ralph Perry, David Grey, John Gale, Scott Fischman, John Duthie, Juha Helppi, Roland de Wolfe, Jordan Morgan, David Williams, Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy, Kenna James, Marcel Luske, Shane "Shaniac" Schleger, Jen Harman, Barry Greenstein, David "The Dragon" Pham, ZeeJustin, Noah Boeken, Tuan Le, Andy Black, Brian "sbrugby" Townsend, "Miami" John Cernuto, Daniel Alaei, Eli Elezra, Dustin "NeverWin" Woolf, “Captain” Tom Franklin, Robert Mizrachi, James Van Alstyne, Liz Lieu, Alan Goehring, Joe Tehan, Johnny "World" Hennigan, David "Devilfish" Ulliott, Thor Hansen, David Sklansky, Jon Little, Vanessa Rousso, and Alex Jacob. Phew!
Making the most noise, as we have come to expect, was Jamie Gold, the reigning World Series of Poker main-event Champion. Gold started the day sat alongside the former WPT World Champion Tuan Le, and also shared a table with Scott Clements and Hoyt Corkins. But far from shutting him up the presence of such talent on his table seemed merely to encourage Gold, and his customary trash talking went into overdrive, with surprisingly good effect. The WSOP quickly established a psychological edge over Tuan Le after he showed him an outrageous bluff early on in the tournament, and he dominated the former WPT champ for the rest of the day.
Gold then busted Adam Weinraub when he turned a straight to beat Weinraub’s flopped set of threes, and induced the former WPT invitational champion to push all-in on the river. The pot helped Gold to move his stack towards the $100,000 mark (competitors started with a $50,000 chip stack) and also won him $5000 from Phil Hellmuth, who bet Gold that he wouldn’t make it to Day Two.
But while Jamie Gold made the most noise, the real story of Day One A was Anna Wroblewski, the previously unheard of 21-year-old who stormed into the public consciousness with a $337k win in one of the preliminary events here at the Bellagio last week. Wroblewski simply crushed her table, sending the 2006 WSOP player of the year Jeff Madsen to the rail on her way to becoming the Day One chip leader.
At the end of Day One B we finally had an overall leaderboard, one which was groaning with some of the biggest names in poker. No-one on Day One B could match Anna Wroblewski’s performance the day before, and she remained at the head of the pack with $211,325 in chips, although Sammy Farha came close in amassing a $210,700 chip stack. In third place sits Dan Lowe with $198,050, with Britain’s Marc Goodwin in fifth place with $177,225.
Other notables in the top twenty are: 12th - Mike Matusow ($162,575), 17th – Shannon Shor ($151,575), 19th – Steve Wong ($147,175) and 20th – Lyle Berman ($142,475).
And some of the bigger names who will not be returning for Day Two include: Mike “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Phil Laak, Nam Le, Erik Seidel, Layne Flack, Jennifer Tilly, David “Devilfish” Ulliot, Alex Jacob, Jeff Madsen, Brian “sbrugby” Townsend, Shane “Shaniac” Schleger, Tuan Le, T.J. Cloutier, John Gale, Doug Lee, David “The Dragon” Pham, John Juanda, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Johnny “World” Hennigan, Jordan Morgan, and Cyndy Violette.