WSOP 2023 Day 1 Recap: Daniel Rezaei Leads Star Studded High Roller on WSOP’s Opening Day

Just two events took place on the opening day of the 54^th annual World Series of Poker, but they were both exciting ones and produced drama right up to the final card. The $500-entry Casino Employees Event was the WSOP’s traditional curtain raiser and opened with over 1,000 entries, a bumper buy-in level for the event.

In the $25k High Roller Event #2, Daniel Rezaei led the field with Brock Wilson and Sean Winter also making the top five.

A Tribute to Doyle Brunson

While every player inside the Horseshoe Las Vegas and Paris casinos will be battling for gold this summer, the intensity of battle is mixed with a reverence to a fallen icon of the game. Doyle Brunson’s passing earlier this month stunned the poker world and the WSOP’s Jack Effel paid tribute to the Godfather of Poker in opening the festival.

“As we get another WSOP underway, we’re reminded how indebted we are to the colossal impact Doyle had on the WSOP and the game of poker itself,” he said. “Doyle was the sport’s biggest ambassador who helped bring poker to the mainstream. He is a legend that we had the honor to work alongside for more than 50 years. We owe so much to Doyle and look forward to setting records this summer as a special tribute to his legacy.”

Rezaei Rips Through Field in $25k High Roller

Daniel Rezaei was the chip leader when the dust settled after a busy day of action in the $25,000-entry High Roller Event #2. There were 174 entries on the day, with around 65 players surviving, chief amongst them the Austrian player Daniel Rezaei. He bagged up 1,368,000 chips, a colossal stack that sat comfortably ahead of his nearest challengers, Justin Liberto (1,147,000) and Brek Schutten (1,050,000). Elsewhere in the top five stacks, Sean Winter (1,047,000) and Brock Wilson (1,009,000) hover ominously as the only other players over a million chips.

Other notables to survive the opening day of the WSOP’s big ticket event included Keith Lehr (997,000), recent WPT winner Bin Weng (975,000), popular PokerGO regular Bill Klein (888,000) and Daniel Negreanu, who used his re-entry bullet to good effect, racking up a stack of 610,000. He was joined in the overnight counts by stars such as Darren Elias (685,000), Chance Kornuth (615,000), WSOP 2022 Main Event winner Espen Jorstad (563,000) and 16-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, who made it through with 340,000.

Others such as Stephen Chidwick, Yuri Dzivielevski, Josh Arieh, and Scott Seiver were not so fortunate, but with registration open into Day 2, re-entries will be flying in before the door closes and players battle into the money places tomorrow.

Casino Employees Event Tops 1,000 Entries

The opening event of the WSOP was the traditional curtain raiser of the $500-entry Casino Employees Event #1. That saw a much bigger field than in 2022, with 1,015 players taking part, and it was Benson Tam (889,000) who topped the leaderboard at the close of play. With PokerNews host Jesse Fullen (861,000) a mere three-bet behind, there’s a fun Day 2 guaranteed for railbirds, with Lisa Eckstein (775,000) and Sandra Faaberg (499,000) both proving their poker chops in a bid to take over from the 2022 champion of this event Katie Kopp.

Last year’s winner did not make the Day 2 chipcounts, but another former winner who did was the 2013 winner Chad Holloway, whose stack of 211,000 chips is plenty to be fighting with as he looks to win his second title in this event exactly a decade after winning his first.  

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