2010 World Series of Poker Day 1 Second Update - $50,000 Players Championship Underway

The $50,000 Player’s Championship has officially begun. Ceremonies started at 5 PM PDT with a brief introduction by Jack Effel. He quickly explained the new structure of the event, which is an 8-game structure. He then proceeded to have each previous living champion stand up and be recognized. Chip Reese was the initial winner of the event, but he passed away in 2007 from complications from Pneumonia.



Effel then asked David Bach to come up and address the crowd. Bach came up and spoke briefly before Effel turned the ceremony over to Doyle Brunson. Brunson spoke about his close friend and referred to him as the greatest player ever. He then turned the room’s attention to a tribute video that was made to honor Reese. The video was very moving and truly captured Reese’s champion spirit.



After the video, Jack explained the rules for the event and then gave it over to Doyle to say the ceremonial “Shuffle Up and Deal.” There were a couple of interesting rule changes that were announced during this event. First, players that registered late were not allowed to play until level two. The other, and more serious rule, involved no-shows. Starting last year, if you bought into an event and didn’t show up, Harrah’s would remove your chips and refund your money. That rules is still in effect, but there is a twist. If you do this twice during the WSOP, then you are BANNED for the remainder of the World Series of Poker. By the way, a no-show occurs if you do not show up by the end of the registration period.

I personally spoke with Jack Effel about this and this is done so that they do not have to keep removing money from the prize pools. He plans to strictly enforce the rules this year. In other words, Phil Hellmuth, show up to your events by the end of registration, or else!

This is definitely a start studded field. Of note, Jennifer Harman is the only woman playing in this event. What happened to “Year of the Woman?” I guess most of the female pros don’t have enough confidence in their game to play in an 8-game mix.

The normal names are here. Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, durrrr, David Benyamine, Phil Hellmuth, Chau Giang, Greg Raymer, Gus Hansen, Erik Lindgren, Mike Matusow, Robert Williamson III, Daniel Negreanu, Eli Elezra, Todd Brunson, Barry Greenstein, and many more. I got an interesting picture where Doyle looks to be doing a Michael Jordan impersonation. Either that or he was having a stroke.



By the way, Doyle is still dead. For those of you that have never been to the World Series of Poker, around the Amazon Room there are banners of past WSOP Main Event Champions. When these banners were made, the intention was to put up color pictures of players that had won the Main Event and were still living.



Those that had passed on were to have black and white photos.



Doyle Brunson’s photo was done in black and white, and it has NEVER been change. The running gag, at least for those of us in the know, is that Doyle is still dead.



Although unrelated to the $50,000 Player’s Championship, there was one “Do you know who I am moment” today. The Amazon Room was off limits for most of the afternoon except for those that either work for the WSOP or those in the media. Barry Shulman decided that he could come in here and have his picture taken at the feature table area. Here is about how the conversation went down.

Security: Do you work for the WSOP?

Guy taking picture: Sure we do. (In a yeah right sort of way.)

Security: Then where are your credentials?

Shulman: But I am a sponsor. (Points to Cardplayer Magazine sign)

Security: If you don’t have credentials you got to get out.

Shulman and Co. take their leave of the Amazon Room.

Moral of the story? Security doesn’t care if you won a bracelet. Get credentials or get to steppin’.

The $50,000 Player’s Championship had 116 players register. 115 of them remain. Dan Shak was the only bustout so far.  Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and Howard Lederer were the last two players to register for the event.   Of course, there are still four days remaining in this event and a lot of poker to be played.



Tomorrow, I will be playing in Day 1a of Event #3, the $1,000 NL Holdem Event. You can follow me on twitter @compncards. With any luck, I will be blogging tomorrow night about how I made Day 2.

Stay tuned to pokerjunkie.com as I continue to bring you blogs and coverage from the 2010 World Series of Poker.