End of Day 1
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The day started with 885 players packed into the Pavilion Room with dreams of a World Series of Poker bracelet and hundreds of thousands of dollars in prize money.
Now, only 95 stand.
Jonathan Little tops our chip count with 129,600 chips followed by Christian Harder (116,100 chips), Tex Barch (115,400 chips), Matt Zoorob (106,000 chips) and Nenad Medic (104,400 chips). Little's day was seemingly less turbulent than others while Medic and Harder exploded during Levels 9 and 10.
November Niner James Akenhead was on a roller coaster the whole day, but finished strong with 52,100 chips.
The biggest story of the day though is that the two players that went heads up in this event last year are still alive.
Jason Mercier (25,500 chips) and Steve "pikappraider" Burkholder (32,400 chips) will return for Day 2 to try and make a repeat run at the final table. They are both relatively short, but their track records clearly precede them.
Play resumes tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. PST and we are scheduled to play down to a final table. We hope you join us for Day 2 right here at PokerNews.com!