Seven Former Main Event Champs Play with 2,164 Entrant Field

The World Series of Poker $10,000 World Championship Main Event completed the second of three Day 1 starting flights on Sunday and drew 2,164 entrants. With the 795 entrants from Day 1A, the overall field is up to 2,959 players with the largest flight expected on Monday. After five, two-hour levels of action Richard Dubini looks to lead the field of 1,645 advancing players with 265,000 in the bag.

Kenny Hallaert finished near the top of the leader board after finishing in sixth place in 2016’s Main Event. “Today went good, I’ve got more than double the average stack going in the bag.”

Kenny Hallaert was reluctant to compare his Day 1 to last year’s Day 1. (Photo: PokerPhotoArchive.com)
“It’s been a great day, I played a lot of flops and big pots, so I have hopes for the rest of the tournament. I finished last year with a 100K more, but that was insane,” he added. “I’m very happy to survive Day 1 with more than average.”

“I don’t want to compare anything to last year – I had such an insane run last year and had chips throughout the whole tournament,” said Hallaert. “So, I just want to play this tournament like any other and when you bag twice the average you don’t have any reason to complain.”

Brandon Adams, Fabrice Soulier and Brandon Meyers each finished the day close to the 200,000-chip mark. Jeremy Ausmus, Gaelle Baumann, Andy Frankenberger and Jack Salter all finished the day with six-figure counts.

Seven former Main Event champs played on Sunday: Robert Varkonyi, Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Jamie Gold, Jonathan Duhamel and Greg Merson. All but Moneymaker and Merson advanced to Day 2.

Greg Merson busted Day 1B but won’t have to reschedule his wedding. (Photo: PokerPhotoArchive.com)
Near the average stacks are Barry Greenstein, Scott Seiver, Scott Davies, Bryn Kenney and 2017 Super High Roller Bowl winner Christoph Vogelsang.

The surviving players resume their Day 2 on Tuesday with Day 2A/B, but will remain separated from the Day 1A players.

Monday’s schedule calls for the live stream exclusively on PokerGO from 11:15 am – 6:15 pm PT.

A full list of survivor’s chip counts and seating assignments can be found on WSOP.com.

Ben Yu, Justin Bonomo, Jesse Sylvia and Nacho Barbero are a few of the notable players that took to the felt today but were eliminated.

Miltos Tzimourtas and four friends ticked off a friend’s bucket list item by playing in the Main Event. Five friends from suburban Atlanta were willed into the Main Event from a friend that passed away from pancreatic cancer. 

Just an hour into the day Vanessa Selbst was seated at the feature table and lost her stack to Gaelle Baumann in a blockbuster hand for the ages.

The front runner for #WSOP Hand of the Year ?? Watch continuing coverage of WSOP Day 1B exclusively on @PokerGO! pic.twitter.com/fst8mMHUuD

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Jamie Gold reflected on his win in 2006 in the largest Main Event field in history and hopes to see his record replaced by another player. He touched on how TV paints heroes and villains and how people loved to hate him after the broadcasts. Even pointing to legalized online poker in the US could lead to 20,000 entrants in the future.

Billy Pappas rocketed to the top of the poker world in 2014, making the final table and ultimately finishing in fifth place. He’s had a couple small cashes since, but in his words he’s been on an extended vacation.