The 2021 Main Event Day 1F saw 1,045 players enter, bringing the total entries to 6,360.
Hopes were high going in after the morning's Mega Satellite drew 94 players (the biggest turnout so far). This suggests that the news that lammers are no longer transferable may not have hit the satellite economy as hard as expected.
Day 1F started with a short delay, but once underway, things ran more or less as smoothly as one could expect.
The WSOP's dealer shortage has made for a few logistical complexities. For example, today's Day 1F event ran in parallel with Day 2ABD. That made for a lot of moving parts.
Day 2ABD saw a featured table with Doyle Brunson (making one of his periodic "returns" to poker), Jason Koon, and Kyna England. This table rather overshadowed Day 1E's coverage.
Day 1F's Table 479 did its best to meet that energy. At one point, it was the temporary home of Michael Mizrachi, Felipe Ramos, Harald Sammer, and Scotty Nguyen all at the same time.
Felipe Ramos was playing today for higher stakes than most. On Twitter he explained that he and his significant other were in a last longer bet for far more than rolls.
Ramos explained: "Playing the #WSOPMainEvent tomorrow with wifey. Last longer is: Winner picks all series and movies to watch until the next ME. This is the most important bet of the year!" Too rich for my blood.
Among those whose Main Event ended on Day 1F were Rainer Kempe, David Benyamine, and Dominik Nitsche.
While those who made Day 2 included Erik Lindgren, David Pham, Barry Greenstein, and actor Kevin Pollak.
Big returns
Doyle Brunson wasn't the only player making a return to poker today. Naturally, Fedor Holz came out of retirement, like Doyle, he just can't keep the deal-out box checked.
Liv Boeree, who mostly left cards behind for science communication a few years ago, returned for this Main Event. She claims to have "no idea how to play poker anymore," players at her table are advised to take that admission with a pinch of salt.
Chris Moneymaker went back and forth as to whether he would play or not in the run-up to the WSOP. Today we got final confirmation as he entered the Main Event.
On Twitter, he noted that this is his first live event with an Americas Cardroom patch on his T-shirt.
"Crazy to think this is the first big live event I am repping @ACR_POKER," he wrote.
The biggest entrance of all was not from a long-absent player. It was from 16-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth, who seems to be everywhere at once and has been running over this series since it kicked-off.
Hellmuth entered the event dressed up as Gandalf the White and was accompanied by various characters from the JRR Tolkein mythos and some models.
A sharper choice of character for Hellmuth might have been Gollum — the character in that series who is most obsessed with gold jewelry.
Boeree, Moneymaker, Holz, and Hellmuth all made Day 2.
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