This year's ambitions of the organizers of the WSOP were clear even before the summer - to break all possible records, including the Main Event, which has honestly resisted since 2006. It was already clear from the beginning of the festival that these ambitions are far from exaggerated, when there were already 18 of the first 20 events stronger than last year. Well, after yesterday's strong flight 1C, there was already talk about a successful attack on the Main Event.
The participants of flight 1D barely had time to hear the "shuffle-up and deal", but the decision was already made - more than three thousand players at the tables meant already during the first level that the 17-year-old record was finally broken! No one knew what the current numbers were, as the number of players was constantly growing, but the 9,000 entry mark was no longer being talked about - will it be possible to break the magic mark of 10,000 players?
Flight 1D kicked off Chris Moneymaker's opening remarks alongside this year's record holder - 100-year-old Gene Calden, who became the oldest player to ever play a WSOP Main Event. In addition to the aforementioned Moneymaker (143,100), other former champions also advanced yesterday, namely Joe Hachem (125,300), Scotty Nguyen (8,400) and Qui Nguyen (121,800). Hossein Ensan was the only one who failed to advance.
As expected, Phil Hellmuth also jumped into flight 1D in style, who this year chose a costume based on the musical The Greatest Show. As the principal, he brought with him 17 female assistants to the poker room symbolizing the bracelets he earned, but there was also a beast in the cage, who was none other than Dan "Jungleman" Cates!
Among other things, yesterday brought a truly unprecedented moment, when two players ended their potentially 10-day tour right in the first hand of the entire tournament. On one table they hit KK to AA for 300bb preflop, but on the other at the same time poor Mikolaj Zawadzki ran into a set vs set spot with a pair of 8h8d. On the Qc8s2s9d5h board, Jamie Smith turned QhQd on the river in the showdown, which sealed another 300-blind seat-opening.
So the record was successfully broken, but now everyone is anxiously waiting to see where the final numbers of this year will rise. Registration is still open during the first two levels of today's and tomorrow's split day 2, so we will know the final result around midnight tomorrow. Will there finally be a 5-digit number?
Source: WSOP, PokerNews, Twitter, YouTube
