Day 1D of the Main Event was a huge one and saw the record 8,773 field of 2006 fall and ended with 3,202 players with chips at the end of the night.
After all the bags were collected and bagged there was a familiar name at the top of the chip counts, Nicholas Rigby of Pittsburgh who had his Main Event moment in the sun back in 2019 when he made a run to a 52nd place finish. He gained attention on the live stream coverage back then with very aggressive play and the famous “dirty diaper” hand of three-deuce off suit which he used to win several pots back then.
It’s safe to say this aggressive no fear style is still working for him in this deep stacked event as he bagged up 408,800 which is the largest stack across all Day 1 starting fields and the 2nd largest Day 1 stack since the Main Event increased starting stacks to 60,000 in 2019. (Largest was Bryan Campanello with 417,500 in 2019).
| Chip Position | Player | Hometown | Chip Count |
| 1 | Nicholas Rigby | South Park, PA | 408,800 |
| 2 | Brittney Stout | Porter, NJ | 375,500 |
| 3 | Neel Murthy | San Francisco, CA | 323,100 |
| 4 | Chris Hunichen | Columbia, SC | 321,200 |
| 5 | Carlos Leiva | Buenos Aires, Argentina | 318,700 |
| 6 | Brandon Mincher | Holbrook, NY | 317,000 |
| 7 | Jeffrey Weil | Richfield, OH | 308,100 |
| 8 | Matthew Adams | Castle Rock, OH | 307,200 |
| 9 | Vincent Pistorino | Bronx, NY | 306,000 |
| 10 | Harish Ananthapadmanabha | Aurora, IL | 305,400 |
Other big stacks at the end of the day included Brittney Stout who bagged the 2nd largest stack with 375,000. The wife of poker pro Matt Stout, Brittney has accumulated a few results of her own in recent years.
Also among the top stacks was Chris Hunichen who overcame an emotional day for him and was able to bag the fourth largest stack with 321,200.
Other notables names within the top 100 counted included; WSOP circuit grinder Eric Salazar (21st with 265,000), Chance Kornuth (26th with 241,500) who is looking to continue his great summer and report his deep run to 16th place in the Main Event in 2021. Spanish high-roller Sergio Aido (58th with 204,000) and two-time bracelet winner Ari Engel (61st with 203,000).
Many other big names remained alive at the end of the day as close to 75% of the field advanced to Day 2D which is on Sunday.
Feature table action
Feature table action that was provided by PokerGO, featured Phil Hellmuth who of course entered the Main Event in his signature chaotic style with a lion tamer costume with Daniel "Jungleman" Cates who was the lion. But Hellmuth would shelve the antics for the stream and focus on the action at the table where he would have a pretty solid night without any real “blowup” moments.
The key hand for him of the night was flopping a set of sixes against pocket queens to collect a large pot and stay steady from there to finish with 105,800. His lion would not be as fortunate as “Jungleman” Cates was eliminated before the day ended.
