After another five exciting levels of poker, Day 1b is in the books from the fabulous Fontana Room at Bellagio Resort in Las Vegas, and the World Poker Tour's crown jewel $25,000 World Championship event is well underway. Today saw the second half of the record field take to the felt, and just as on Day 1a, the tables were packed full with marquee names.

Among the 333 players who paid the twenty-five large for a seat behind the fountains on the second half of the first day were, well, everyone who wasn't there on Day 1a.

Barring a few high-profile litigators (and, unfortunately, Joe Awada), the poker world was almost fully represented, with WPT preliminary event winners Joe Pelton, Ryan Daut, Mark Newhouse, Nenad Medic, Joseph Hachem, Brian Sumner, Ted Forrest and J.C. Tran joining certified big-ballers Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, Clonie Gowen, Allen Cunningham, Jennifer Tilly, Phil Laak, Michael Mizrachi, Scotty Nguyen, Paul Wasicka, Patrik Antonius, Huck Seed, Mike Matusow, Carlos Mortensen, Kathy Liebert, and even Texas Dolly himself, Doyle Brunson.

The field would eventually number 639 players, creating a prize pool of a massive $15,495,750. As is customary at Bellagio events, organizers opted to pay out a total of 100 places, with finishers 51-100 earning $46,410. The big money, of course, is further up on the pay scale, with 20 finishers guaranteed six figures and the top three finalists set to earn over a million a piece. First place is a tidy $3,970,415, which makes this tournament another record setting event for the World Poker Tour.

Unlike Day 1a, which seemed rather sedate in comparison, Day 1b was characterized by plenty of all-in collisions, with the deep $50,000 starting stacks ignored in favor of massive overbets and catastrophic, tournament-ending calls.

Within a few minutes of the day's commencement, Ted Forrest found himself on the wrong side of the proverbial rail, having taken advantage of opponent Hollis Stabler's betting error when Stabler bet out $30,000 on a flop of K-8-7 while trying to make it only $3,000. Forrest, blessed with pocket aces, pushed for about $20,000 more, while Stabler, possessing queens and poor eyesight, called the all-in and looked doomed to be spending the rest of the afternoon hunting for a new prescription before a queen spiked on the river to send the 2007 WPT Shooting Star champ home in dramatic and ridonkulous fashion.

Following Forrest to the rail early were Eugene Todd and Bill Edler, while a level or so later, both Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi and Joe Pelton hit the bricks nearly back-to-back when Mizrachi failed to complete his spade-flush draw against Carlos Zambrano's pocket aces in a hand that sent Pelton spiraling into tilt mode.

The 2006 WPT Legends of Poker champ, who happened to be J.C. Tran's closest competitor for the tour's Player of the Year honors, all but handed the hardware to Tran after he attempted to capitalize on another player's betting error and wound up shipping his stack to the mistaken one, falling with ace-queen to his opponent's ace-king.

With plenty o' pros crowding the Fontana Room and the overflow packed into the Bellagio poker room (where Jamie Gold was holding court over the $500-$1,000 NLHE table), some strange bedfellows emerged on a number of high-profile tables. Directly in front of the PokerListings.com mobile headquarters, Mats Rahmn, Patrik Antonius, Brandon Cantu, Bill Chen and Surinder Sunar battled for supremacy, while elsewhere in the room, Doyle Brunson, Erick Lindgren, Gus Hansen, David Baker, Lee Watkinson and Toto Leonidas shared table space.

Following the eliminations of Mizrachi and Pelton, pros like Clonie Gowen, Phil Laak, Erik Seidel, Nam Le, Max Pescatori, and Jennifer Tilly were eliminated, while 2007 WPT World Poker Open champ Brian Sumner was felled himself after getting all the money in with pocket fives on an A-J-9-5 board, only to run into an opponent with pocket aces. Sumner couldn't catch the miracle case five on the river, and thus another preliminary event winner was relegated to spectator status.

J.C. Tran, meanwhile, found himself in troubling times near the end of Day 1b, seeing his stack dwindle to about half of the starting allotment before doubling through Jason Fretag in a freaky battle of the blinds, AA versus KK, and then busting another opponent after getting all the money in on the flop with a set of tens against the flopped nut flush. The turn was a blank, but Tran hit the case ten on the river, and sent his opponent packing while chipping up to around $65,000. Poker's current golden boy finished the day around $53,000.

After five luxurious levels of play, and only a few minutes after the sun set behind the Las Vegas strip, organizers packed it in for the night and the herd moved en masse to the buffet, leaving behind only the media to count their chips in anonymity. Leading the charge at the end of over seven hours of play is Kirk Morrison with $170,000, followed by Tim Phan with $160,000 and Sammy Farha with $150,000. David Baker is fourth with $144,000, and David Benyamine fifth with $140,000.

Of course, none of these men can hold a candle to Anna Wroblewski's Day 1 high of $211,325, and the real test for both halves of the field begins tomorrow, when they are combined into one überfield for the duration of the tournament. Action resumes at noon Pacific Time and will span another five levels, with PokerLisings.com on the scene as usual to feed your addiction to timely live updates. Check back all day for the freshest and cleanest from the Fontana Room floor!