C'mon Sammy Boy!

On a much more pleasant note, the World Series of Poker has begun in Vegas. The official numbers are as staggering as expected: 5,619 players for a total prize pool of $52,818,600. "Day 1" had to be divided three ways in order to whittle the entrants down to a manageable number, and thus far plenty of big names have been knocked off. Hellmuth, Chan, both Brunsons, Ferguson, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Negreanu, and on. Into Day 2, Moneymaker and American Pie's Shannon Elizabeth have just been eliminated, but pros such as Phil Ivey, Mike Matusow, and Dan Harrington are alive and kicking, so the fight is well on.

Now attentive readers may remember my compulsive gambling habits persuaded me to take a few long shot flyers to reach the final table. The odds of selecting 1 of the 5,619 to make the final 9, though the odds of doing so is just over 0.16%. Hilariously though, one of my boys - Sammy Farha - emerged from the first day in 2nd place.

Yes that is 2nd out of 5,619! But, my $3 bet at odds of 41 to 1 is still far from home... and no sign of Scotty or Pescatori. As Cardplayer.com reports [THE place for live updates], still plenty of work to be done, but let's see if Farha can pull out the miracle for me!

Day Two: A New Beginning
In many ways, Day Two marks the beginning of the tournament. With separate heats for Day One, it might be easier to think of those three days as qualifying rounds to get the field down so everyone can play together on one day.

Nearly 1,900 players have survived their Day Ones to return for Day Two. Here are the top ten chip leaders:

1. Haakon Waerstad - $169,200
2. Sam Farha - $156,600
...

Ironically, even though we have meaningful chip counts for the first time (representing the entire field), history tells us it's doubtful that any of these chip leaders will even make it to the final table. It's a reminder that there are no guarantees in poker; even 7-2 offsuit cracks aces 11% of the time, and nobody has won a dime in the Main Event yet.

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UPDATE: 4 hours later. Do you believe in the power of the Jinx? I thought I was too far away, but Farha has fallen down to $32,000 since this original post. Argh. Should have known better.