In the first six seasons, the WPC was a staple event on the World Poker Tour schedule. The event was dropped this year from the televised line up though, and the entrant figure reflected that, with 261 playing in comparison to last years 425.
The day got off to a bit of a contentious start as many of the late-arriving professionals were all sat together on one side of the room. It did make for some interestingly loaded tables though, with the likes of Mike Matusow spending a lot of the day in the company of John Phan. When Phan’s A-J sucked out on The Mouth’s A-Q though, he might have rued the seating draw a little more.
The field continued to shrink throughout the day, with Jonathan Little, Joe Sebok, Men Nguyen, Lee Watkinson, Jerry Yang, Gavin Smith, Barry Greenstein, and defending champion J.C. Tran all hitting the rail.
Late on in the day, Phil Ivey woke up and made his usual dash for the top. We say woke up, as he actually managed to oversleep for an hour past the dinner break, getting himself blinded down to just over 10,000 before getting to business.
A total of 75 players made it to the end of the day, with play on Day 2 continuing until the last 27 are standing.
