World Series of Poker Main Event -- Day 1C Recap

With just 1,875 entrants registered in the first two starting days of the 2011 World Series of Poker main event, many began to wonder if Black Friday had indeed had a bigger effect on the poker world than originally anticipated.

Instead, day 1C drew an impressive 2,181 players and tournament officials have already confirmed that day 1D will be even larger. With a strong showing on Sunday, the main event field will rival the numbers put up from 2007 to 2009, when the tournament attracted 6,358, 6,844 and 6,494, respectively.

Today’s action centered around a couple of celebrity players, who both appeared to be unfazed by the presence of ESPN’s cameras and the mounting fans who struggled to catch glimpses from the rail.

At one point, Boston Celtics superstar Paul Pierce was among the chip leaders, but a less than stellar final level of the day saw him fall back into pack. Pierce was still able to bag up an above average count of 63,750 at the end of the night. Read more about Pierce here.

Comedian Brad Garrett also had a strong day, finishing up with an average stack. Unfortunately, celebrities such as Ray Romano and Shane Warne failed to navigate their way through the day’s five levels.

Defending champion Jonathan Duhamel was also in attendance today, but for four levels he struggled to get going. Finally, thanks to a late day double up, he managed to finish with a respectable 41,150. Other former main event champions still in the hunt include Scotty Nguyen, Dan Harrington, Phil Hellmuth and Joe Cada.

The counts still aren’t official, but it appears as though Kevin Song leads the day 1C field at the end of play with 163,325, just narrowly besting Chris McClung with 162,375. Other notables near the top of the chip counts include Adam Junglen and Shannon Shorr.

Card Player will be releasing the official overnight chip counts as soon as the WSOP staff makes them available.

For all of the latest WSOP information, check out Card Player’s WSOP landing page.

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