Vincent Gironda Tops WSOP Event #40 Day 1 Leaderboard

New Jersey’s Vincent Gironda leads the $2,500 buy-in Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event #40 after Day 1 of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas.

Gironda holds 60,400 chips and is followed by Pittsburgh’s Michael Reed (56,800), Brazilian star Andre Akkari (50,800) and Canadian Terrence Chan (50,700) as the starting field of 302 was cut back to 101 survivors for Day 2 at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino.

Sao Paulo’s Akkari was chip leader for a large part of the early evening as he eyes up the $182,088 top prize from a $687,050 prize pool, while Reed and Chan made late charges to the top of the leaderboard. New Jersey’s Brian Meinders (19th on 34,600) is also still well in contention to collect a second WSOP bracelet this summer after picking up $116,118 for taking down the $1,500 buy-in Limit Hold’em Shootout event #25.

Scott Seiver Ends Day in Eighth Place

Also included among the players who bagged up chips following eight levels of play are Chad Brown (fifth on 46,300), John Hennigan (seventh on 45,300), Scott Seiver (eighth on 43,900), Andrew Le (14th on 37,500), Humberto Brenes (15th on 37,100), Jon Turner (16th on 36,500), Dan Kelly (17th on 35,900), Maria Ho (22nd on 31,200), Jeff Lisandro (34th on 25,200), Scott Fischman (37th on 24,600), Alessio Isaia (43rd on 23,300), Eugene Katchalov (54th on 20,600), Bill Chen (61st on 16,600), Rep Porter (68th on 14,700), Victor Ramdin (72nd on 13,700), Dan Shak (77th on 12,600), Tyler Bonkowski (78th on 11,800), Andrew Badecker (94th on 2,700) and Daniel Idema (95th on 1,800) as they all aim to grab the gold bracelet and $182,088.

Phil Ivey Again Falls Early

However, as always, many big-name pros failed to last the opening day, including Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Eli Elezra, Barry Greenstein, Shaun Deeb, JC Tran, Matt Hawrilenko, Annie Duke, Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi, Andy Bloch, Carlos Mortensen, Ari Engel, JJ Liu, Stephen Chidwick, Erick Lindgren, Chris Tryba, Steve Landfish, Brandon Meyers, Gavin Smith, Noah Boeken, Jeff and Barry Shulman, Randy Lew, Jose ‘Nacho’ Barbero, Sam Barnhart, Al Barbieri, James ‘Flushy’ Dempsey, Pat Pezzin, Jennifer ‘Jennicide’ Leigh, Dwyte Pilgrim, Eric Froehlich, Alexander Kuzmin, Marco Traniello and Joseph Cheong,

The aim today is to play 10 60-minute levels, with the initial goal being to make the money as the cash bubble bursts after 37th place. Whoever survives that momentous event will be guaranteed at least $4,046.

WSOP 2012 Event #40 Day 1 Top 10

1. Vincent Gironda (USA) – 60,400
2. Michael Reed (USA) – 56,800
3. Andre Akkari (Brazil) – 50,800
4. Terrence Chan (Canada) – 50,700
5. Chad Brown (USA) – 46,300
6. Michael Senter (USA) – 46,300
7. John Hennigan (USA) – 45,300
8. Scott Seiver (USA) – 43,900
9. Did Not Report (Canada) – 43,000
10. Sok Cheng (USA) – 39,800