Home / Poker News May 2010 / WSOP 2010 kicks off – Day 1 report
WSOP 2010 kicks off – Day 1 report
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2010-05-30 09:17
Friday was the day the 41st edition of the biggest yearly poker fiesta kicked off at the Rio, in Las Vegas, with 2 separate events. The $500 casino employee event was the first one on the schedule, attracting a starting field comprised exclusively of casino professionals. Although none of poker’s usual big guns were present at the green felt in this event, the field was as tough as it could possibly get. Jack McClelland and the WSOP’s Ty Stewart were probably the two biggest names in the event. McClelland did better than Stewart, and survived the day on a 17,900 chip stack. Stewart made it past the money bubble too, but he was bounced before the end of the day, as his pocket Qs were bested by an opponent’s pocket Js.
Kent Washington was the player who would finish with the biggest stack at the end of the first day of competition. He secured a comfortable lead when he woke up with pocket rockets and an opponent shoved all-in with Ah,Kh. Washington proceeded to take down that pot and thus to build an advantage of around 50,000 chips over second place man Jonathan Koutala.
Koutala ended up with 108,700 chips. Most of his stack was accumulated during the final stretch of the day, when he won a crucial pot from John Armstrong.
The second event of the day and of the 2010 Series upped the stakes on the first one in a pretty dramatic way. Unlike the Casino Employees event, the $50k Players Championship event saw no shortage of “name” players. The battle for the Chip Reese memorial trophy will last a staggering 5 days, and the structure will be one of the slowest ever, to allow skill to triumph over luck in every possible way.
Erik Sagstrom was the one who ended up with the chip lead at the end of the first day of the
poker tournament. He was followed by David Oppenheim and by
Doyle Brunson.
116 players bellied up to the tables at the start of the event and only 11 were eliminated by the end of the hostilities. PokerStars’ Daniel Negreanu, Greg Raymer, Alex Kravchenko, Jason Mercier, Chad Brown, Dario Minieri and Barry Greenstein all moved on to day 2. Barry Greenstein finished in 10th spot with 240,000 chips.
Phil Ivey and Tony G will also return to action on day 2.
Day 1 of the Series will see one of the much-hyped and overly popular $1,000 NL Holdem events kick off as well.
