The 2011 World Series of Poker Europe €10,400 Main Event Championship Day 1a started with 301 players. This year's Main Event is set to be a record-breaking tournament with Day 1b just ahead and the previous record of 362 players (2007 and 2008 brought 362 players each of those years) is certain to be passed. The numbers promise this year's event is a success - in 2010 the WSOPE Main Event gathered a total of 346 players in two days.
This also means that this year's winner will most definitely surpass 2010 winner James Bord's cash prize of almost €1 million. Jamie Rosen led the field of 165 Day 1a survivors with a 162,700 chips. However, Rosen's isn’t too far ahead of his opponents – Dermot Blain who finished the day in second place will return for Day 2 with 123,500 chips. The two leaders are followed closely by Chris Moorman who was in third place with 121,775 in chips, Polito Laurent (120,200), Mustapha Kanit (117,700), Erik Friberg (117,000), Darren Elias (111,400), Leo Boxell (110,900), Emil Patel (109,000) and Johnny Chan, 10 time Bracelet winner and WSOP Main event champion, has 108,350 chips.
And talking about big poker names, a couple more of them have advanced to Day 2 of the Main Event including Erik Seidel, Randy Dorfman, Tristan Wade, Matt Waxman and 888Poker pros Sam Holden and Matan Krakow. All of them will come back to the tables for more WSOPE €10,400 Main Event Championship action on Day 2 of the event.
One of the key moments of the day was Moorman eliminating PokerStars Team Pro member and WSOP bracelet winner Jason Mercier. As the flop brought 
, Moorman was in the lead with 
against Mercier's 
. The rest of the board wasn't any help for Mercier, he was out! The hand also gave Moorman a nice boost for his chip stack and helped him finish the day in third place.
Another big poker name you might have heard of before that hit the rail during Day 1a of WSOPE Main Event was the infamous “Poker Brat” Phil Hellmuth. The 11-time (and many times a runner-up) WSOP bracelet winner got busted by Michael Telker who seduced Hellmuth into putting in all of his remaining chips pre-flop holding Kh 9s against Telker's Ac 9c. The board brought no Kings for Hellmuth leaving the Poker Brat chipless and out of the game.
Some other big pros joining Mercier and Hellmuth on the bust-out list were Tyler Bonkowski, Justin Bonomo, Joseph Cheong, Matt Stout, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Sam Stein, and Anton Makiievskyi. The 165 that survived Day 1a come back to the tables on Monday joined by those to advance from Day 1b.
Stay tuned to PokerWorks.com for more fresh WSOPE results brought to you straight from the tables.
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