Foxwoods Poker Classic Day 1

The professionals present were spread out evenly amongst the field. No stacked tables emerged on the first day of this perennial stop on the WPT schedule, which gave the professionals time to stretch their wings against green opponents. The 30,000 starting stacks also ensured that a lot of post-flop poker would rule the day. More than half the field survived day 1, and 218 players will return for another five levels of poker tomorrow.

Reigning Card Player Player of the Year, David “The Dragon” Pham, was the first professional player to bust out of the tournament with just 20 minutes remaining in the first level. According to Michael Binger, Pham sat down and played nearly every hand, losing all but one. His final hand saw him short stacked with 2,500, and he moved it all in with A-10 against his opponent's A-J. The board didn't help him and he was out the door. Other early eliminations included Amnon Filippi, Noah Schwartz (who was coolered with pocket kings against pocket aces), Hasan Habib, Isaac Haxton, Tom “Durrrr” Dwan, Bernard Lee, Justin Bonomo, Lee Markholt (who is fresh off of his first WPT title victory at the World Poker Challenge), Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy, and T.J. Cloutier.

Nam Le took a much different path than the Dragon early in the day when he nearly doubled up during level one. Le limped under the gun for 200, and a few other players called before Steve Fiorentini raised from the button to 1,100. Le made the call and everyone else mucked. The flop came 10-high with two rags and Le checked. Fiorentini bet 2,000 and Le made the call. The turn card was another rag, Le checked, Fiorentini bet 5,000, and Le check-raised to 12,500. Fiorentini moved all in with pocket aces and Le immediately called with pocket tens for top set. The river card was a blank, and Le eliminated Fiorentini to jump to the top of the leader board. Le took advantage of this early victory and he was among the chip leaders all day. He finished the day with 87,600.

Le was joined at the top early by Brock Parker, who built a ridiculous stack of 165,000, when the average stack was just 33,376. Other big names rose to the top in the early going: Men “The Master” Nguyen built his stack up to 92,000, and Barry Greenstein built his stack to 105,000. Paul Snead (168,500) closed in on the chip lead as well late in the day, and he gained most of his chips in a monster hand:

The betting amounts were unknown on a board of 10 8 7 K, but Ryan "toetagu" Fair was all in and Jimmy Kohl made the call. Snead moved all in over the top and Kohl thought for a bit before deciding that he couldn’t get away from the hand. All three players then anxiously turned over their hands:

Fair: 9 7
Kohl: 8 7
Snead: K 10

The river was the 3 and Snead, who had both players covered, sent two opponents to the rail and grabbed a ton of chips.

The end of the night carried a business-as-usual tone into the final bell, which rang at 8:30 p.m. During the last part of the day, two big developments took place. One was quite loud; as Steve Buckner let out a flurry of celebration when he hit a heart flush on the river against an opponent’s set of queens. Buckner started shouting, "Let me suck out one time! Let me suck out one time!" He then paraded past other tables, getting louder and louder, pumping his arms and kicking his legs to punctuate the cheer. The tournament came to a stop to watch his display, which lasted for a minute, and by the time it came to a close there was a mix of cheers and jeers from the other players in the room.

The second notable event of the evening involved the start of what could be a strong title defense by last year’s winner. During the last half hour of the day, the 2007 Foxwoods Poker Classic champion, Raj Patel, chipped up in a major way and took the lead. He held 194,000 as time expired, and ended the day with 192,050. A few other professional were lost before the end of the night, but the majority of the field still remained. Among the fallen late in the day were Nick Schulman, David Williams, Sully Erna, Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler, John “The Razor” Phan, Alex Jacob, and Tuan Le.

Here is a list of all of the players who hold at least 100,000 heading into day 2:

The remaining field of 218 will return tomorrow at noon, and then play another five levels to get one day closer to crowning a 2008 champion. We will see if Patel can further his run at back-to-back titles tomorrow. Check back here for all the action in live updates, chips counts, photos and videos.