Come November 7th and Ivey will face his greatest challenge to date, the battle to become the WSOP Main Event Champion.  When all is said and done its WSOP bracelets that really matter to poker players.  Listen to them talk at the table or in an interview and they will brush off the millions in prize money as a by product, it’s the glory and acclaim from their peers that these guys really crave.

Just getting to the final table is an astonishing achievement, not just for Phil Ivey but also his eight fellow members of the ‘November Nine’, all the more impressive when you consider that 6,494 paid the $10,000 buy-in.

Such a large field can prove very difficult for the bookies to judge.  Who exactly are the favourites out of 6,494?  Obviously the world renowned pros will be fancied but in a game where luck or the ‘Poker Gods’ as some would have it plays a significant part the bookies must factor this in when calculating each player’s odds of winning the WSOP main event.

That is why Phil Ivey started out at 175/1 at our sister site PartyBets.com, even then that was considered quite a short price, it could easily have been double that but because this is Phil Ivey we are talking about the odds had to be shortened.  Indeed, this proved to be a wise choice because Ivey is now down to 5/1 to take that elusive Main Event bracelet.  Any of you who were wise enough to take him at 175/1 will be rubbing your hands with glee if he does succeed.

But Ivey is up against it, he’s one of the short stacks plus he faces some very stiff competition from the likes of Brit James Akenhead, Card Player Exec Jeff Shulman and France’s Antoine Saout.  And let’s not forget chip leader Darvin Moon, the logger from Maryland, USA who won his seat from a $130 satellite tournament.  If Moon were to win his story would surely surpass 2003 champion Chris Moneymaker’s rise to poker fame.

WSOP Main Event Chip Counts

Darvin Moon              58,930,000
Eric Buchman            34,800,000
Steven Begleiter       29,885,000
Jeff Shulman             19,580,000
Joseph Cada             13,215,000
Kevin Schaffel           12,390,000
Phil Ivey                     9,765,000
Antoine Saout            9,500,000
James Akenhead        6,800,000

The big news for Day 1 D was simply the amount of players trying to register themselves for the main event. The tournament organisers were expecting it to be busy, possibly even selling out but they surely could not have expected the scenes that greeted us yesterday as we arrived at The Rio at 10am. There were at least 300 people queuing past The Mike Sexton Suite all the way up to the registration desks. Some people had been waiting since about 3am, concerned that they would not get their seat.

After a lot of confusion and in some cases arguing, a total of 2809 players were allowed to sit down and take their seats in Day 1D. This was the maximum amount that could possibly squeeze into the rooms available and left over 800 very angry and disappointed players outside. Most got their buy-ins back if they won a seat in the satellites.

I know poker players sometimes like to make a dramatic entrance or feel that a certain starting day is special to them but because of the 4th of July holiday weekend it was a sure bet that Day 1D would be far more popular than the previous 3 starting days. What must make it annoying for the 800 unlucky players today is that Day 1B only had just over 870 players so there was plenty of room on that day.

With all that excitement over, the 2809 players got down to the business in hand (excuse the pun) which was to play some poker. I heard an interesting story as I walked past the ESPN feature table. Apparently the table that Phil Ivey was sat at had been invited to sit at the ESPN TV feature table and moved over to sit down when Mr Ivey decided he didn’t want to sit there so they all moved back again. The other guys were devastated because they can pick up sponsorship money and other privileges when they are lucky enough to reach the table.

Now that we have the total number of players we have the following facts for this years Main Event:

• Total Players 6494
• Total Prize Pool $61,043,600
• First Prize Approx $8,500,000
• Top 648 players will get paid.

This years November Nine will make a minimum of approx $1,000,000 each

By the time we got to the days end and the chips were being bagged up, we had a clear chip leader for the whole tournament. Troy Webber ended the day on more than double his nearest challenger today after taking down a sizeable pot when his trip 8’s held up against a player who had pocket queens. Partypoker had two players who finished the day on just over 100,000 chips. Grass roots player Bodo Sbrzesny and Fabian Quoss from Germany will go into Day 2B in a strong position.

Some notable results include the two guys who came first and second in last years main event. Last years winner, Peter Eastgate ended his day with a respectable 42000 chips whilst runner up Ivan Demidov’s tournament ended before the dinner break.

Tomorrow we start Day 2A with 1460 players all hoping to take another step closer to the final table.

Jeremy Coleman