Action-Packed Days At WSOP

First three events have a heavy thrill factor The Rio hotel and resort in Las Vegas is experiencing typically large guest bookings as the 41st World Series of Poker continues to produce a feast of poker, with the first three events presenting plenty of thrills for railbirds and players alike. In the $500 buy-in casino employees NLHE event, which started the ball rolling with a field of 721 players, Kent Washington held the chip lead when play ended on Day One. Washington is around 50 000 chips ahead of his nearest rival, Jonathan Kotuala on a drastically reduced field. The main excitement predictably surrounds the $50 000 buy-in mixed game Player's Championship, which started late Friday afternoon and attracted 116 entries, assuring the winner of a $1 559 043 main prize. The chip leaders at the end of Day 1 were Erik Sagstrom, followed by cash-game specialist David Oppenheim and poker legend Doyle Brunson. By Sunday morning 87 players, among them some of the best pros in the game, were still battling it out as play reached level 8. Among those who had not survived as InfoPowa went to press was Gus Hansen, internet champ Tom 'durrr' Dwan, Todd Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Howard Lederer, Marc Karam, Brian Townsend and Greg Raymer. Others on notice with short stacks included previous winner of the event David Bach, Erick Lindgren and Patrik Antonius. The prize structure looks like this: 1: $1,559,043 2: $963,375 3: $603,348 4: $436,865 5: $341,430 6: $272,275 7: $221,105 8: $182,463 9-10: $152,730 11-12: $129,957 13-14: $113,030 15-16: $98,331 The first of the $1 000 buy-in events seemed early on set to break last year's entry field number of 6 012, with registrations topping 3851 long before the shut-off deadline. Last year's WSOP main event champ Joe Cada got things started Saturday with the traditional 'shuffle up and deal' call, and the action was frenetic from the get-go, with a high attrition rate. Among those entering was Amarillo Slim, Joe Sebok, Lisa Parsons and Vanessa Rousso, all of whom were still doing well as InfoPowa went to press. Also in the registered crowd were top players like Lee Watkinson, Jonathan Little, Lex Veldhuis and David Benyamine. The attrition rate is a good indication of the level of activity at the tables, and barely five hours into Day 1 over two thirds of the field had fallen by the wayside. When level 7 concluded there were only 690 players left.