WSOP Circuit Event Photos and Day 1 Report

Dr. Pauly, of the #1 World Series of Poker Blog, Tao of Poker, files his WSOP Circuit Main Event report from Caesars Palace…Flipchip photos—Ed.

photo by flipchip/lasvegasvegas.com
Monday’s Main Event in the tournament room at Caesars Palace

The WSOP Circuit event at Caesar’s Palace held their championships event on Monday. The buy was $5K and had 336 runners. The total prize pool is over $1.6M with first place winning $506K. The top 36 places will win prize money. There were many familiar faces in the field such as two-time WSOP Circuit winner Peter “Nordberg” Feldman, Greg Raymer, Billy Baxter, Barry Greenstein, Scotty Nguyen, Erick Lindgren, Erica Schoenberg, Max Pescatori, Men the Master, David Sklanasky, Evelyn Ng, Jeff Madsen, Jesus Ferguson, Layne Flack, Gavin Smith, Joe Bartholdi, and Joe Sebok. Only 75 players survived the cut with David “The Dragon” Pham as one of the chipleaders with 143K.

More after the jump…

photo by flipchip/lasvegasvegas.com
Jesus Ferguson

The Buzz

The field at the Caesar’s Circuit was larger than expected and also attracted many top tiered pros such as former WSOP Main Event champions Greg Raymer, Jesus Ferguson, Scotty Nguyen, and Huckleberry Seed. Plenty of non-Las Vegas sharks stuck around after the WPT Championships to play in this event that also featured a slew of amateurs who were looking to take a shot at the $506K first place prize for only a $5K investment. Plenty of fans flocked to the rail to snag photos and autographs.

photo by flipchip/lasvegasvegas.com
Erica Shoenberg

The Back Story

Action went faster than expected as players dropped out faster than everyone could keep up. Gregg Raymer, Evelyn Ng, and Joe Sebok headed to the rail early in the day as almost half of the starting field was eliminated before the dinner break. Over 77% of the field failed to advance to Day 2. When play was suspended only 75 players remained.

Sight of the Day

Erica Schoenberg and her boyfriend David Benyamine were seated at the same table to start the tournament.

photo by flipchip/lasvegasvegas.com
Gavin Smith

Quote of the Day

“That’s how you bluff nine players, boys!” shouted Layne Flack after he stole a pot with 6s-3s that had seven players in the hand. That was before Flack ordered an entire bottle of wine.

photo by flipchip/lasvegasvegas.com
Joe Bartholdi

Online Players Roundup

A few big time online tournament players were in the field on Day 1 such as Nordberg, ZeeJustin, TheWacoKidd, Shaniac, tsoprano, BrettFavre, Takeover, and TMay420. Shaniac’s Kings ran into Aces as he busted out before the dinner break along with TheWacoKidd. Tsoprano, ZeeJustin and Nordberg had healthy stacks when the day ended.

photo by flipchip/lasvegasvegas.com
Max Pescatori

Big Stacks

David “The Dragon” Pham had around 135K when play ended. Also with a lot of chips were Steve Wong, Layne Flack, Nick Schulman, Shannon Shorr, Peter “Nordberg” Feldman, and Zee Justin.

photo by flipchip/lasvegasvegas.com
Steve Hannenmann

Noteworthy Eliminations

Some players who failed to advance to Day 2 included Greg Raymer, Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby, Brandon Adams, Dan Alspach, Lee Watkinson, Huckleberry Seed, J.C. Alvarado, Eric Mizrachi, David Williams, Jeff Madsen, Blair Rodman, Jimmy Tran, Davidson Matthew, Alex Jacob, Kenna James, Kathy Liebert, Daniel Alaei, O’Neil Longson, Paul Wasicka, Eli Elezra, Shaniac, James Van Alstyne, Joe Sebok, J.J. Liu, Amir Vahedi, Allen Kessler, Evelyn Ng, Ted Lawson, Gavin Smith, Nam Le, Joe Bartholdi, David Levi, Jean Gaspard, Men the Master, Scotty Nguyen, Barry Greenstein, Max Pescatori, David Sklanasky, and Anna Wroblewski.

photo by flipchip/lasvegasvegas.com
David Plastik

photo by flipchip/lasvegasvegas.com
Caesars Palace Poker Room

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