Small Starting Field For Day 1A Of WPT World Poker Finals - Poker News Daily - 6th November 2008

The World Poker Tour kicked off action on Wednesday for its seventh visit to the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut and was greeted with a smaller than usual crowd.

While attendance at the tournament has seen a decline in the past couple of years – from its apex in 2005 of 783 players to last year’s 575 runners – it looks as though it will be difficult for the final total to reach even last year’s figures. 162 players signed up for Day 1A but, even with this said, the champion of the event should still take away a $1 million payday, as Hoyt Corkins did in 2003 when the field was 313 players strong.

For such a small gathering, there were still many notable names from the tournament poker and online poker worlds. The ladies were represented at the tables by PokerStars player Vanessa Rousso, Kathy Liebert and East Coast poker powerhouse Svetlana Gromenkova. Top male players on the tables included David “The Dragon” Pham, T.J. Cloutier, Full Tilt Poker’s Erik Seidel, defending champion Mike Vela and Poker News Daily’s own columnist Bernard Lee. Finally, top online players Shaun Deeb, Thayer Rasmussen, Kevin Saul and defending WPT Player of the Year Jonathan Little were in action on the tables in Foxwoods.

The field for Day 1A started with 30,000 chips and 90 minute levels, scheduled to play through five levels. Typical of play when the chip stacks are deep, there was very little action through the first two levels with only a handful of players departing and none of the top names. As the evening wore on, however, the pros began to drop and a familiar name emerged to the top of the Day 1A leader board.

Vela will be unable to defend his title as he was eliminated before the final level of play of the evening. He was joined on the rail by not only the aforementioned Liebert, Cloutier, Deeb and Rasmussen but also professionals Tony Ma and Joe Sebok, who was cruelly eliminated just before the end of the night’s play.

On the other side of the ledger, pro Jason Potter – who has over $400,000 in career earnings and made a WPT final table this year at the World Poker Challenge in Reno – ran roughshod over the field. He used two key double ups – one in a set over set situation and the other when he out-flopped Jason Young’s pocket Queens – to build his stack to 183,825, good for the chip lead at the end of the day. Other familiar names in the Top Ten include Vadim Trincher (163,600), Saul (135,350), Little (134,400) and Pham (109,200).

With Day 1B action already underway with its noon Eastern Time start, the field may still crack the 400 mark. 244 players, including Daniel Negreanu, Chris Ferguson and Phil Ivey have made appearances on the second starting day and the survivors from today’s action will join the remaining 99 players from Day 1A tomorrow for the continuation of the tournament. Poker News Daily will have a full recap of today’s action and keep you posted of all the action as the WPT’s Foxwoods World Poker Finals continues to its final table on November 11th.

(Credit: Poker News Daily)

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