Naidoo, Solomon, Rousso and Rahme Headline Record Breaking Day 1

After a crazy action-packed day of poker there are 128 players still standing, with Sunil Devachander on top with 182,900. Plenty of top pros entered the first day of the World Poker Tour National Event in Johannesburg, and due to the re-entry possibilities they are all still alive.

The third ever National event in South Africa started out with about 170 players, but the numbers rose quickly as players were keen to get their money into the pot. Top South African pro Jarred Solomon even re-entered five times before finally picking up some chips. In the end Solomon won a big pot with ace-king versus ace-jack, and he starts on Day 2 with 103,200.

Emperor Casino ambassador Vanessa Rousso also came to play today, and she got involved in many pots over the course of the day. Rousso was ‘in the zone’ by her own account and comes back on Day 2 with 46,500 chips. Another ambassador of the casino, Shashi Naidoo, also managed to impress not only with two giant billboards in the poker room, but also with her play at the tables. Naidoo had big swings and eventually bagged up a very good stack worth 80,100.

The entire top four of the South African all-time money list entered the event on Day 1, and for the longest time it looked like Raymond Rahme would close out as one of the chip leader. Rahme, who famously finished third in the 2007 WSOP Main Event, reached 120,000 chips, but bagged up 83,800.

Darren Kremer, the Number 3 on the South African all-time money list, had a decent day for most of it, but in the last level of the day he busted. Kremer did re-enter right away and bagged up 38,000. Former WPT Johannesburg champion Daniel Brits bagged up 56,100 and he also remains in contention for another title in his home country.

The rate at which players were re-entering was very high and with minutes left before the day was done last year’s record number of 279 was broken. There were 282 total entries on Day 1 while late registration and re-entries are still possible up until the end of the first level on Day 2.

From the second level on tomorrow levels will be extended from 40 to 50 minutes, and it looks as though we will need to play a very long day tomorrow in order to reach the money. Tune back in with us tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. local time for more coverage of the 2015 WPT National in Johannesburg.