The World Poker Tour rolled back into the center of the poker universe for the tournament with way too long of a name today, as Day 1a of the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic kicked off inside the Bellagio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

With a $15,000 buy-in, this tournament usually attracts the cream of the poker crop, and today was no different.

The man whose name adorns the marquee hit the felt, and Texas Dolly wasted little time getting his $45k starting stack up to $70k within the first couple of levels. Eventually Brunson leveled off, though, and will more than likely return for Day 2 below the average stack.

There really isn't any bigger name in poker than Phil, whether you're talking about Hellmuth or Ivey, and both got things going inside the friendly confines of the Fontana Room in familiar fashion today.

Ivey shot up the leaderboard in the early levels much the same way he did at the 2007 DBFDWPC, but it was really Hellmuth putting on the show.

The ego has landed.

Sitting the first few levels out, like he does just about everywhere, the Hellmuthian One then pompously sat down as the fourth level of five began, making up for lost time in short order.

First he berated one lesser-known for hitting a gut-shot on him, then he bluffed 2006 WSOP wunderkind Jeff Madsen off a huge pot. The Brat's next trick was cracking Theo Tran's aces with 6♥ 5♥ to rail him and end the day on close to $200k.

In just two levels, Hellmuth managed to grab the end-of-day chip lead, choosing to spend it playing like the world's best poker player, instead of just yapping about it. Although, truth be told, he did a lot of that too.

Meanwhile, Ivey ended very nicely on over $80,000 and will begin Day 2 right in the thick of it as well.

Ryan Young rushed out to the Day 1 chip lead the last time the WPT was in Vegas for October's Festa al Lago and pulled that same trick today, cracking some sucker's aces when he flopped a set in Level 1 and quickly becoming the first player past the $150k mark a little later.

Day 1 deja vu.

After fizzling out at Festa, Ryan stayed strong today and will come into Day 2 with a little over that $150k and the ability to continue the simmering conversation he held with Hellmuth throughout the late stages. With Ryan laughing the whole way, Phil kept threatening to take his chips. It should be fun to watch this one boil over.

One player who got stronger as Festa al Lago progressed was Nenad Medic. He managed to make the final table back in October before running into the steam train that was eventual winner Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier.

Medic got stronger as this day got longer as well, convincing one gambler to get it all-in on the flop with an unconnected A-K against his pocket queens. Two bricks put the Serbian-Canadian into the lead on over $180k. Although he slipped a bit later on, he'll still come into Day 2 with close to $150k, a legitimate threat to Hellmuth's current lead.

How much? I call.

ElkY came to play today as well, but despite flopping quads early on, he didn't really make many headlines, slowly climbing above $60,000 by the time play wrapped.

The winner of the tournament the last time the WPT came to Bellagio was actually joined on the felt by the winner of the last DBFDWPC and its more than $2 million first-place prize.

However, Eugene Katchalov's title defense started slow and stayed that way, as he left with close to the $45k he started the day with when play ended just before 9 p.m. PT.

There were 203 starters today, and a rather bloated 150 survived.

Those who couldn't handle a starting stack that would have amounted to 75 big blinds in the last level just by playing break-even poker included 53 of the biggest names in poker that won't be repeated here the rest of the week ... like the boat-flopping-yet-cooler-catching Joe Sebok, the never-really-in-it-and-now-out-of-it John Juanda, and the ever-gambling Brandon Cantu, who rumor has it will be Tasered later this year at Bay 101 in San Jose after recently losing some kind of last-longer to Clonie Gowen.

Cyclone season.

For her part, Gowen pulled off at least one huge bluff and caught some serious cards on the way to a stack in the $150,000 range and a spot on the leaderboard with Hellmuth, Medic, Young and a host of others including Gary Gibbs, Kido Pham and Luke "IWearGoggles" Staudenmaier.

Devin Porter, Greg Raymer and Amnon Filippi are in the top 10 as well and just as hungry for the big cash as the rest.

Plus, poker royalty, anointed or otherwise, like Full Tilt's Mike Matusow, Eli Elezra, Team PokerStars Pro's Chad Brown and Barry Greenstein, Justin Bonomo, Kevin Saul, David Oppenheim, Steve Billirakis and a whole host of others will have threatening stacks when the serious poker begins at noon on Day 2, two days from now.

PL.com will be back at Bellagio tomorrow at noon, however, when a second crop of Five Diamond dreamers begin their quest for poker immortality.

The rest of the best are bound to be here and if you don't want to miss a thing, you know where to be.