World Series 2004 - DAY 2

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

Contributed by Mike Paulle

The crowds are finally dwindling now. The friends and relatives of the eliminated players are heading home. Only a small percentage of knocked out players want to watch those luckier and better move on to the end of the rainbow where a $5,000,000 pot of gold awaits someone else.

The second day of the first ever preliminary round in World Series history has been completed. Of the 2,500 plus who played on those first two days only 1,100 remain. In other words it took two days of 12 hours each to get the field down to what would have been an all-time record prior to this year.

Now some of the extra tables can come out of the nooks and crannies they were shoved into. Only 110 of the 120 tables will be needed tomorrow. ONLY 110 tables.

As was the case yesterday, the famous players of poker were basically overrun by the enormous field. Six world champions survived yesterday. Four made it through the gauntlet today-Dan Harrington, Chris Ferguson, Tom McEvoy and Bobby Baldwin.

The names that were axed today reads like a Who's Who of Poker. Players like: Berry Johnston, Huck Seed, Brad Daugherty, Ted Forrest, Chau Giang, Alan Goehring, Eskimo Clark, Huberto Brenes, Tony D., Sammy Farah, Phil Ivey, Max Stern, Noli Francisco, Harley Hall, Antonio Esfandiari, James Vogl, Amir Vahedi, Clonie Gowen, Mohamed Ibrahim. The list goes on and on.

And who knocked out these super stars of poker? Nobody knows, because no one has ever seen any of these players before. Even when you read their name tags, you've never heard of them. It's great for poker, but kind of alarming to those of us who used to think that experience at this level of play was important. If you made a bet on the field in this horserace, you are looking better and better with each passing day. It wouldn't surprise me now if I knew no one at the final table in a few days. This is completely unprecedented I assure you.

The good news is that HostThomas and HostTerrance both made it through the day with some chips and will be playing tomorrow.

PokerStars Players' Chip Counts

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