Dr. Pauly's WSOP Main Event Day 1A Recap
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photo by FlipChip/LasVegasVegas.com
Darwin, the little poker playing monkey, is back for another WSOP Main Event.
WSOP Main Event Day 1A Recap
The 37th annual WSOP Championship event kicked off at the Rio with 2,138 players buying in for $10,000 each. There was so much interest in the first day that the Tournament Directors accepted alternates.
The tournament didn't start without a little controversy. The NGC came down hard on players wearing anything with an online site's dot com logo. The players and marketing people from those sites like PokerStars ran around swicthing shirts on their players or blocking the ".com" part of the logo on hats and jerseys with black tape. Most guys simply turned their shirts inside out.
FlipChip/LasVegasVegas.com photos shot Friday 07/28 on location at the Rio All-Suite Resort in Las Vegas, Home of the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event.
James Garner
James Garner kicked off the festivites as a special guest when he announced, "Shuffle up and deal!"
Plenty of celebrities were playing including Wil Wheaton, Tobey Maguire, Norm MacDonald, Antonio Tarver, Laura Prepon, Chris Masterson, Matthew Lillard, and Danny Masterson. The field was packed with pros such as Daniel Negreanu, Carlos Mortensen, Gus Hansen, Barry Greenstien, Chau Giang, Andy Black, Andy Bloch, Mike Sexton, Richard Brodie, Tony G, Maureen Feduniak, David Benamyine, Scotty Nguyen, Hoyt Corkins, Chip Jett, Katja Thater, Denis Ethier, Dutch "Tool" Boyd, Kristy Gazes, Erica Schoenberg, Mimi Tran, Juha Helppi, Minh Ly, Noah Boeken, JJ Lui, Julian Garnder, Jim Betchel, Clonie Gowen, Amir Vahedi, John Duthie, David "The Dragon" Pham, Action Dan Harrington, Dan Alspach, Gank, David Sklansky, Mickey Applebaum, Lee Watkinson, The Grinder, Bob Feduniak, Shance Schleger, Isaac Galazan, Roland de Wolfe, Terrance Chan, Perry Freidman, Kiril Gerismov, Luca Pagono, Chris Masterson, Matt Matros, William Rockwell, Eli Elezra, Chad Layne, David Levi, Johnny World Hennigan, Mike Wattel, Brad Daugherty, Brian Haveson, David Skalansky, Berry Johnston, Bill Chen, Allen Kessler, Layne Flack, Farzad Bonyadi, Ralph Perry, Randy Holland, and Mark Vos.
The first elimination took less than seven minutes as thousands of players let out a sigh of relief that they weren't Day 1A's Gigli. Chip Jett was the first pro to bust out in the first level. Chris Masterson from Malcom in the Middle fame was the first celebrity out. Wil Wheaton took a hit early and was eventualy eliminated when his opponent rivered a set against him.
Other Day 1A elimiantions included: JJ Lui, Mekhi Phifer, William Rockwell, Amir Vahedi, David Benyamine, James "Maverick" Garner, Eskimo Clark, Jean Gluck,Tobey Maguire, Norm MacDonald, Antonio Tarver, Clonie Gowen, Dan Harrington, Jennicide, Matthew Lillard, Lee Watkinson, Luca Pagano, Bill Chen, Gus Hansen, and Dutch Boyd.
Dan Harrington was the first WSOP Main Event Champion to be eliminated from the 2006 World Series of Poker main event. Dan won his title in 1995 against a record 273 entrants becoming only the fourth WSOP millionaire.
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