Poker Tournament/Carnival Gets Underway

The World Series of Poker main event kicked off last night. About 1/4th of it, anyway. 2,138 players began play, and they played until they were down to 800. Some factoids from Day 1A (days 1B, 1C, and 1D run through Monday):

• The people at the Rio were mad about all the ".com" advertisements people were sporting, so you're going to see a lot of black tape on people's hats and shirts when ESPN finally gets around to televising things. • The first elimination took 7 minutes. There's $10,000 well spent. • Norm MacDonald held the chip the lead at one point. He was eventually busted. • A woman dressed as a nun was the chip leader at various points through the day. • Tobey Maguire lasted a few rounds, until he was busted by Mike Sexton. • Among the other celebrity eliminations: Mekhi Phifer, Antonio Tarver, Matthew Lillard, James Garner. • Among the real player eliminations: Amir Vahedi, Clonie Gowen, Dan Harrington, Gus Hansen, Dutch Boyd, and Chris Ferguson. • The chip leader after Day 1A is Paul McCaffrey. This means absolutely nothing.

Day 1 at the World Series of Poker [ MSNBC] Dr. Pauly's WSOP Main Event Day 1A Recap [ Poker Prof's Poker Blog] WSOP Updates - Main Event, Day One 'A' Begins [ Poker News]