A field of 639 players had to be split into two Day One’s, and created a prize pool of $15,495,750 and a top prize of $3,970,415, the biggest prize ever outside of the World Series of Poker main-event.
As you’d expect the WPT’s flagship tournament attracted all of the biggest names in poker, with the following poker superstars spotted on Day One A alone: Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, WSOP Champion Jamie Gold, defending champion Joe Bartholdi, Victor Ramdin, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Jeff Madsen, Dan Harrington, Fabrice Soulier, Gavin Smith, Barny Boatman, T.J. Cloutier, Kristy Gazes, Harry Demetriou, Hoyt Corkins, Padraig Parkinson, Joe Sebok, Ralph Perry, David Grey, John Gale, Scott Fischman, John Duthie, Juha Helppi, Roland de Wolfe, Jordan Morgan, David Williams, Marcel Luske, Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy, Kenna James, Shane "Shaniac" Schleger, Jen Harman, Barry Greenstein, David "The Dragon" Pham, ZeeJustin, Noah Boeken, Tuan Le, Andy Black, Brian "sbrugby" Townsend, "Miami" John Cernuto, Dustin "NeverWin" Woolf, Daniel Alaei, Eli Elezra, “Captain” Tom Franklin, Robert Mizrachi, Joe Tehan, James Van Alstyne, Liz Lieu, Alan Goehring, Johnny "World" Hennigan, Thor Hansen, David "Devilfish" Ulliott, David Sklansky, Jon Little, Vanessa Rousso, and Alex Jacob. Phew!
Making the most noise, as we have become used to, was Jamie Gold, the reigning World Series of Poker main-event Champion. Gold started the day sat alongside the former WPT World Champion Tuan Le, and also shared a table with Hoyt Corkins and Scott Clements. But far from being intimidated Gold seemed inspired by the talent on his table, and used his customary trash talking to good effect, quickly establishing a psychological edge over Tuan Le in particular, after he showed him an outrageous bluff early on in proceedings.
Gold then accounted for Adam Weinraub when he turned a straight to beat Weinraub’s flopped set of threes, and induced the former WPT invitational champion to move all-in on the river. The win helped Gold to move his stack past the $100,000 mark (competitors started with a $50,000 chip stack) and also bagged him $5000 from Phil Hellmuth, who bet Gold that he wouldn’t make it to Day Two.
Besides Jamie Gold the big story of Day One A was Anna Wroblewski, the previously unheard of 21-year-old who stormed into the public consciousness with a $337k win in one of the preliminary events here at the Bellagio. In her run towards the Day One A chip lead Wroblewski accounted for the 2006 WSOP player of the year Jeff Madsen, flopping a set of twos to send him crashing to the rail.
By the end of Day One B the leaderboard was well established, and packed with some of the biggest names in poker. Heading the list was Anna Wroblewski, with $211,325 in chips, closely followed by Sammy Farha, with $210,700. In third place sits Dan Lowe with $198,050, with Britain’s Marc Goodwin in fifth with $177,225.
Other notables are: 12th - Mike Matusow ($162,575), 17th – Shannon Shor ($151,575), and 20th – Lyle Berman ($142,475).
And some of the bigger names who will not be returning for Day Two include: Mike “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Nam Le, Phil Laak, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Tilly, Layne Flack, David “Devilfish” Ulliot, Jeff Madsen, Alex Jacob, Brian “sbrugby” Townsend, Tuan Le, Shane “Shaniac” Schleger, T.J. Cloutier, David “The Dragon” Pham, John Gale, Doug Lee, John Juanda, Johnny “World” Hennigan, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Jordan Morgan, and Cyndy Violette.