The 46th annual World Series of Poker is underway, and already the first starting day of Event #1: $565 Casino Employees No-Limit Hold'em and Event #2: $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em are in the books. Below you will find some brief information on both events in question.
Event #1: $565 Casino Employees No-Limit Hold'em
A field of 690 was narrowed down to 51 players over 12 hours of play on Day 1. Stephen Gilbert (picture) finished with 236,500 and the chip lead. Blake Robbins took an early chip lead on Day 1 but will "only" bring the second biggest stack to Day 2 with just over 230k in chips. Also returning for Day 2, but with a much smaller stack, is the man who finished second in this event last year, Corey Emory.
The plan for Day 2 is to play until only one player remains. A prize pool of $344,000 is up for grabs - of which $75,704 is reserved for the winner!
Event #2: $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em
This is the first open event of the 2015 WSOP. A star-studded field of 442 players showed up for Day 1 and 171 players survived 10 levels of play. (The event started at 4 p.m. Wednesday and ended around 3 a.m. Thursday).
Darryl Ronconi - who has 12 WSOP cashes to his name, totalling more than $900k - bagged up the chip lead with 211,100 in chips. His closest challengers are Ludovic Geilich with 194,000 and Joe Ebanks with 182,000.
Other notables that will return for Day 2 include former Main Event champions Greg Merson and Martin Jacobson, Joseph Cheong, Brian Rast, Jonathan Jaffe, Eddy Sabat, Jay Farber, Antonio Esfandiari, and Phil Hellmuth (picture).
This event is scheduled to continue for another three days of play. The top 45 players will receive their share of the $1,983,400 prize pool. The last man/woman standing will walk away with $466,120.
