The smaller of the two "day 2" fields of the main event of the
World Series of Poker goes off today with 1,033 participants. How long they will play today will have a lot to do with how fast the short stacks bust out. Nearly 60 percent of the field is below the average stack and the tournament officials do not want to mess around with the prize pool magic number of 621.
Since there is a second day 2 to be played tomorrow with a much bigger field of 1,313 starters, there is actually little chance of the combined two days reaching the payouts by tomorrow night. But tournament officials will be overly cautious as today plays down. Both days must play the same amount of time and no one wants to even come near the magic number of 621 tomorrow with half of the field not even in the room.
Tournament Director Jack Effel has announced that play today will last five levels OR when the number of players remaining reaches 350, whichever comes first. Day 2B tomorrow will play exactly the same number of minutes and hours that are played today.
By the way, we are going with the official
WSOP list and using 1,033 starters today. Our own numbers show 1,036 and several other media are reporting 1,037 but the list released by
WSOP this morning has 1,033 players with chip stacks and seat assignments.
