World Series 2004 - DAY 1

*WSOP and World Series of Poker (from now on referred to as the Main Event and/or World Series)

Contributed by Mike Paulle

After a year of uncertainty, where the continued existence of the World Series was questioned, the cards went in the air for the 35th World Series Main Event at 1 pm. A staggering 120 tables, with ten players each, began play. 1,200 players would have been a new record entry amount by itself. But today was only the first half of a mind-bending 2,500 plus who found $10,000 to enter the largest poker tournament in history. Those who predicted the demise of the World Series, when Binion's closed its doors on January 9th of this year, couldn't have been more wrong. Harrah's has been magnificent in their support for the World Series. Evidently the corporate management at Harrah's has seen the future and it is poker.

Tournament co-directors Matt Savage and Jim Miller have done an unbelievable job getting this monster in a cage. Entries were triple what they were last year. No amount of pre-planning can allow for such a throng. Literally this worldwide mega-event has transcended poker to become a destination like the Super Bowl. There were several stories of people who have never played a hand of poker paying for an entry because it was the hot thing to do.

The 1,200 starting field also had nearly 100 alternates that had to be pared to less than 600 total players by the end of the day. Therefore, a sixth level was played on Day 1 and 2. That sixth level had blinds of 200/400 and a 100 dollar ante and it accomplished the desired result on Day 1 as the final number of survivors decreased to 58.

Of the 145 PokerStars entries at the start of Day 1, 66 made it to Day 3 (remember Day 2 is the second flight of Day 1). If you've played against these people online, you already know how good they are. Now the rest of the Main Event knows as well.

The PokerStars chip leader is FossilMan. Other 'Stars' in the top rank of players are: murphstahoe, Chump, Yun-Harla, FAtALBuLLeT, and TIJO.

Some of the more famous who left the first day were: DADONG, reloadthis, bad_beat_bud and Siren.

Here is a partial list of the PokerStars players still in the hunt for the $5,000,000 first prize and the championship bracelet: dblgutshot, royalflushle, Earp, mrrain, Donald, RogueX, TBohms, fazz, dirtrancher, DontTap, bobbyc72, fujimo, OddsMaker, lemon73, jdags21, madeinmt, 100189, feurinho, magithighs, Castor, Budda4, astarisborn, maxcarnage, awmc1, p10ker, gatordoc, HorseApple, PHENOMENON, smattes, loucardfan, abc2000, tobyone, mm-nh, BigDonkey, winemo, gaffel, III25, Rook, caulfield, Jschlach, curtains, Acehole, quadducks, gski6986, BBuddy, KILLERACE, JuneLakeJake, SnoSrf, PokerMillion, catastrophe, eirivi, duddles, waveball, RugDoctor, CRITTER69, DaPimp and mariolo.

PokerStars had a healthy 12.1% of this enormous starting field and our players held their own face to face with the best in poker. After Day 1, PS still had 11% of the field.

In the named world, tournament professional Mike Laing was the Day 1 chip leader with 129,525 in chips. He told me he has 40% of himself and would be very happy with a paltry $2,000,000.

PokerStars Players' Chip Counts

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