Day 1 of Event #28 is in the Books
Another overwhelmingly large group of poker players gathered in the Rio this afternoon to kick off our second standard format $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Event of the 2011 World Series of Poker. There were 2,500 registrants and after 10 levels of play, we are down to just 349.
As usual, we had no shortage of poker talent on Day 1. Liv Boeree, Galen Hall, Michael Mizrachi, Justin Young, Tony Dunst, Jonathan Duhamel, Freddy Deeb, Phil Laak, and Eric Baldwin were just some of the players that entered the event unable to see action on Day 2. Even Bruce Buffer, the well-known UFC announcer, held a chip lead for the first few hours before slowly losing it to his opponents throughout the course of the day.
Not all of our notable pro's fell through though. Among those left are Amnon Filippi, Drazen Ilich, Andy Frakenberger, Matt Affleck, David Pham, and Peter Feldman. All of them have plenty of experience battling their way through "moving day" and the action should be furious as they try to set themselves up for glory on Day 3.
However, all of them will be chasing our front-runner, Rick Romine. About halfway through the day, whispers of an enormous stack were being heard throughout the room. When our highest notable player in our chip counts had just 40,000, Romine had already crossed the 100,000 mark... easily. And he didn't stop there. Hand after hand he continued his rush and ended the day with a whopping 176,100 in chips. For most people, Day 2 is will be stressful as the money bubble comes and goes and people start playing for the cash. But with Romine's amazing Day 1, the first few hours will be all about maintaining his stack.
Due to the Seniors Event starting tomorrow at noon, the tournament directors have decided to restart this tournament tomorrow at 4 p.m. local time, an hour and a half later than normal. But of course it won't stop the PokerNews crew from covering all of the action from start to finish so be sure to come back tomorrow to see who emerges as the players to beat on the final day.