Loading...Day 1 of the '08 WSOP saw 352 potential Pot-Limit Hold'em World Champions pony up $10,000 to play in the first event of the new season in an Amazon Room draped with bunting and banners and plenty of advertising to boot.
On hand to commemorate the occasion was the marching band from nearby UNLV, who galvanized spectators and assembled pros alike with a riveting performance aimed squarely at the ear of one unlucky WSOP dealer.
Afterward, WSOP Commish Jeffrey Pollack expounded on the awesomeness of his poker festival and then the cards were in the air and the 39th annual World Series was officially under way.
The man with the plan.
The WSOP's decision to stage a World Championship event as Event 1 for the season has attracted its fair share of critics, but scheduling such a high-stakes tournament and boutique poker variant as the sole tournament for Day 1 ensured tournament organizers were not besieged by the teeming hordes of poker hopefuls who lined up for last year's early donkaments.
Instead, the first day of this 46-day poker extravaganza was relatively casual (besides the whole marching band thing), with a small but strong field turning out to battle it out for top PLHE honors.
Among those in attendance were such poker luminaries as Doyle Brunson and Phil Ivey, as well as Big Game regulars Jennifer Harman and Eli Elezra and poker players-cum-TV personalities Shannon Elizabeth, Jennifer Tilly, Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten.
Champ no more!
Also in attendance was last year's champion, the unflappable Allen Cunningham. Cunningham took $487,287 and his fifth WSOP bracelet for winning last year's $5,000 PLHE World Championship after defeating runner-up Jeffrey Lisandro and 397 other combatants to earn top honors.
This year's field will battle for a $3,308,800 prize pool, with 36 of its number making bank for their efforts. The first batch of finalists to hit the cashier's booth will leave with $23,162 in their pockets, while the top seven finishers will take home six figures, with first prize a positively delightful $794,112.
Sadly, the champ will not be around to defend his title after Day 1. Cunningham went broke midway through the first day of play after finding himself dealt a horrendous table draw that pitted him against Patrik Antonius, Andy Black, Kathy Liebert and Joe Sebok.
Dancing with the poker stars.
Also eliminated early on Day 1 were twin Hollywood powerhouses Jennifer Tilly and Shannon Elizabeth, who went broke with A-Q against jacks and AA against tens, respectively. J-Tilla found herself unable to win a race against Hasan Habib's pocket jacks, while Elizabeth saw a ten hit the flop to give her opponent the set and couldn't recover on the uptown streets.
Joining the starlets on the rail were former World Series of Poker Main Event champs and PokerStars pros Greg Raymer and Chris Moneymaker. The Fossilman hit the bricks in the day's fourth level in a painful hand that saw him get all-in on a J-9-5 flop with pocket queens against pocket eights and even turned top set with a third queen. That queen gave his opponent the gut-shot draw, however, and the river card was a dagger ten to send Raymer to the rail.
Once a world champion...
Moneymaker lasted longer but busted less painfully, getting all-in as Day 1 wound to a close with a pocket pair of jacks against 2008 Aussie Millions champ Alexander Kostritsyn's pocket aces. The board brought no help and the man who made PokerStars satellites famous went broke a level or so before the day's end.
Also eliminated on the first day of play (full details available on our Live Updates page) were Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Vince Van Patten, Vanessa Rousso, David Pham, Barry Greenstein, Gavin Griffin and Kevin Saul.
Meanwhile, Eli Elezra straight-up dominated the day, amassing $302,000 by the conclusion of the 10th and final level while seemingly playing the majority of pots at a table populated, in his opinion, by a majority of bad players.
Did not flop a set.
Elezra took a tidy pot off of Vivek Rajkumar midway through the day after rivering a king-high straight with J-T. Rajkumar check-called both turn and river on a K-J-5-Q-9 board, giving Elezra plenty of room to catch his straight and going so far as to ask his rival whether he'd flopped a set on the hand.
Elezra would show down his straight and after the youngster tabled a set of queens (for whatever reason feeling obliged to show down his losing hand), told his counterpart, "I was so happy when you asked me this question if I flopped a set because I knew you didn't have ace-ten." Then he raked his chips.
Lurking.
Anyway, 70 players survived the day and will return tomorrow at 2 p.m. to play down to the final table, with Elezra leading Amit Makhija ($270,000), Justin Newton ($230,000), Mike Sowers ($230,000), Nenad Medic, Vivek Rajkumar, Phil Laak, Tuan Le and Patrik Antonius, among others.
Joining the WSOP party tomorrow is Event 2, the first $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em donkament of the season. This event features two Day 1's due to the hordes of NLHE-mad low-level rounders who are expected to come busting down the doors of the Rio on their way to the bracelets, the glory, the money, power and respeck.
PokerListings.com already has enough of the latter three to go around and we'll do all the bestowing of glory around here, thanks. Stick around to find out who get the PL's leftovers.
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