Friday, 29th March 2024 05:59
Home / Uncategorized / 2008 World Series: Qualifiers weathering the storm

Shortly before we entered the final two-hour level of the day, word reached us of the official number of players anteing up on day 1A: 1,297. As you probably know by now, there are four day ones, and the fields tend to increase a little day on day. So the final number is likely to be somewhere in the region of 6,000, give or take a few hundred.

To put this into perspective, this all began in 1970 with seven high-stakes rounders settling down in Binions Horseshoe to play what would become known as the World Series. These days we can “give or take a few hundred” fully eight hours in to the contest. Our conservative margin of error would swallow all the tournaments in the first 25-odd years of competition.

As has also been well documented, these monstrous fields are largely the result of the PokerStars and the Chris Moneymaker effect, and as we mentioned previously, 2,008 PokerStars qualifiers will be spread across the four day ones. It seemed like a good idea towards the end of the day to take a trip round the room and meet a few of them, the first introduction on what will hopefully become a long story en route to a Moneymaker or Raymer-esque cash.

All the following are among the 711 who survived deep into day 1A.

Wesley Ismay, South Dakota, 65,000

Wesley Ismay.jpg

Bjorn Enberg, Boden, Sweden, 28,000

Bjorn Enberg.jpg


Steven Jacobs, Philadelphia, 45,000

Steven Jacobs.jpg

Joe Pecoraro, New York, 44,000

Joe Pecoravo.jpg

Sandy Smith, Jackson, Tennessee, 16,500

Sandy Smith.jpg

Kellen Hunter, Minot, North Dakota, 85,000

Kellen Hunter.jpg

Kip Jones, Lousiana, 28,000

Kip Jones.jpg

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