World Series of Poker fever has started escalating with the start of the main Circuit event this week at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
209 players entered the WSOP event, going after a first place prize of $648 320, and as we went to press only 64 players had survived the first day of action.
Several top pros were knocked out, including T.J. Cloutier, Bill Edler, Fabrice Soulier, Barry Greenstein, J.C. Tran, Chip Jett, Phil Ivey, Alan Goehring, Gene Todd, John Juanda, Michael Gracz, Gavin Smith, Amir Vahedi, Joe Sebok, Brad Booth, Victor Ramdin, David Plastik, Michael Mizrachi, John Phan and Mike Matusow.
Others, like Sean McCabe, Erick Lindgren, Tim Phan, Scotty Nguyen, David Benyamine, John Gale, Nam Le, and Billy Baxter were all still going strong, with healthy chip stacks.