WSOP 2015 Day 1B: Main Event Winners And Losers

The World Series of Poker Main Event is spread over three starting days so as to accommodate the huge fields which are drawn to the most prestigious tournament in the whole of poker. While a total of 741 players took to the Rio casino on Day 1A of the event, that number more than doubled on Day 1B with 1,716 players parting with $10,000 of their cash for a shot at winning a place in poker’s history book. Nevertheless, the combined figure is still down by 458 entrants compared to the numbers seen in 2014.
Losers
From the 1,716 players entering on Day 1B just 1,134 players made it through to fight another day, with 582 players falling by the wayside. This includes such pros as Scott Seiver, Shaun Deeb, Dan Smith, Robert Mizrachi, Eugene Katchalov, Eric Baldwin, Jonathan Little, and Ben Lamb. Also bowing out was Galen Hall right at the end of the day, after which he tweeted:
“And out with 15 minutes left in the day. Pretty epicly brutal last level, lost all my chips going like 0/6 on value hands.. That was about as bad as I’ve ever run. Oh well, better day 1 than day 3.”
Winners
On the other side of the coin, Craig Mason spun his 30k starting stack up to 350,400 chips to finish the day in pole position, followed by Srikanth Koneru (154,725), and Edward Grau (146,675). Other big name pros progressing through the day included Dominik Nitsche (128,000), Matt Salsberg (113,025), George Danzer (96,300), Greg Raymer (92,200), and Brian Hastings (87,500).
After missing his alarm call, Jason Mercier, who already has won a third career bracelet at this year’s WSOP, then missed the beginning of play before bagging up 66,325 on Day 1B. Talking to reviewjournal.com the 28 year-old Florida pro explained:
“I think I would have been confident coming into the Main Event either way. There’s no pressure on me. If I was down like maybe a million dollars, I might be feeling a little pressure that I need to have a good run here. But I don’t feel any pressure. I feel like I’m playing well and just hoping for a deep run.”
Day 1C is due to get underway at midday, with 4,226 entrants needed to register to beat the 3,768 players who entered on Day 1C last year, and the total 6,683 players who took part in the 2014 WSOP Main Event.