Dinner Time
The metaphorical dinner bell has sounded here in the Amazon Room, and the players have been released for their ninety-minute break.
Our Day 1c field has topped out at 2,181 players, pushing the total count for the first three days up over the 4,000 mark. Things are looking good for the over-6,000 bettors.
Over the course of the shakedown that is the first three levels, a few notable players were pulled under, unable to dodge the minefield on their opening day. Most notably, the 2003 Main Event champion, Chris Moneymaker made his exit during the third level of the day. Also falling was the cricketing legend of Australia (Shane Warne), the funny guy (Ray Romano), a trio of 2011 bracelet winners (Jason Somerville, Fabrice Soulier, and Allen Bari), and the oldest player in the event, Ellen Deeb.
Those are the have-nots, but we have a few notables "haves" too. Massimiliano Martinez was sitting atop the counts for much of the last level with over 100,000 chips, but took a hit in the final hand before break to fall back to the pack. Mark Newhouse has been the primary beneficiary of Martinez's losses. Meanwhile, Sorel Mizzi, Shannon Shorr, Erik Seidel, John Tabatabai, and Kenneth Friis are all big movers during the first 60% of this Day 1c, having built some of the bigger stacks around.
Our surviving hungry players are out of here for ninety minutes, and play will resume just before 8:30 P.M.