Nick Maimone Leads WSOP Event #50 After Day 1

North Carolina’s Nick Maimone holds the chip lead after Day 1 of the $5,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em event #50 at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas.

Maimone tops the leaderboard at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino heading into Day 2 on 196,600 chips after the original field of 1,001 – up 136 on last year to ensure that this is the largest number of entries for this competition – was hacked back to just 303 survivors in the chase for the massive $952,694 winner’s cheque from a $4,704,700 prize pool.

As is expected, numerous big-name pros hit the rail on Day 1, including early casualties Antonio Esfandiari, Vanessa Rousso, Joe Serock, Christian Harder, Layne Flack, Fabrice Soulier and Jason Mercier, while Lex Veldhuis also hit the rail early when he shoved all-in with 8♠ 6♠ on a flop of 6♥ 8♣ K♥. His unknown opponent called to show Q♥ 8♥ and spiked a heart on the river for a flush.

Jennifer Tilly Out On Day 1

Also joining the Dutchman at the rail later in the opening day were Daniel Negreanu, Brian Rast, David ‘Doc’ Sands, Jennifer Tilly, Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, Justin Bonomo and Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom.

The Swedish star busted fairly soon after registering when shoving all-in with 10♣ 8♣ after the turn card of a 6♣ Q♣ 10♥ Q♥ board. His unnamed opponent (again!) turned over A♠ Q♦ for trips and the knockout.

However, San Francisco’s Galen Hall fared far better to end the day in sixth place on 129,800 chips after taking down one of the day’s biggest pots when his 10♠ 10♦ became a set to beat his opponent’s overpair.

Phil Hellmuth Survives Opening Day

Also returning well up the chip counts for Day 2 are players such as Michael Drummond (second on 158,000), Gordon Vayo (third on 147,500) Brazil’s Thiago Nishijima (fifth on 135,200), while still right in contention are the likes of Stephen Chidwick (eighth on 128,600) and Tommy Vedes (19th on 107,100), Jackie Glazier (30th on 94,700), Phil Hellmuth (46th on 79,000), Andrew Lichtenberger (47th on 78,300), Alexander Kravchenko (51st on 77,000) and Phil Ivey (57th on 72,200).

However, other well-known pros are just clinging on and will struggle later today, including Jennifer Harman (275th on 16,300), Andy Frankenberger (291st on 11,200) and Adam Friedman (298th on 6,600).

A total of 117 places will be paid at least $8,939, so it shouldn’t be too long before the money bubble bursts today.

WSOP 2012 Event #50 Day 1 Top 10

1. Nicholas Maimone (USA) – 196,600
2. Michael Drummond (USA) – 158,800
3. Gordon Vayo (USA) – 147,500
4. Dmitry Gromov (Russia) – 137,200
5. Thiago Nishijima (Brazil) – 135,200
6. Galen Hall (USA) – 129,800
7. Christopher Mcclung (Canada) – 128,600
8. Stephen Chidwick (UK) – 128,600
9. Erik Aude (USA) – 121,900
10. Christian Jeppsson (Finland) – 119,100