Day 1 of the Season XV World Poker Tour® Five Diamond World Poker Classic $10,400 Main Event at Bellagio in Las Vegas was a jam-packed, star-studded affair. At the end of the first day’s action, the field size had swelled to an exciting 519 entries, and all signs point to an even bigger field than last year’s 639 entries. At the end of Day 1 last year, this event had tallied 439 entries.
The record for the WPT® Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event is 664 from 2007. Given the rapid pace this year’s field is on, there’s a very solid chance we could see anew record of entries. The total prizepool has already reached $5 million, and it will continue to grow as the field size increases. Remember, registration will remain open until the beginning of Level 9 on Tuesday’s Day 2, which is at about 5:15 p.m. local time tomorrow. Plus there are unlimited re-entries.
At the end of Day 1, approximately 385 players remained.
Leading the way with 185,000 in chips to finish Day 1 was Robin Hegele, and a large chunk of his chips came in Level 3 with the blinds at 75-150 with a 25 ante when he took out both Daniel Negreanu and Lily Kiletto on the same hand. After Peter Neff had raised to 400 from the hijack seat, Hegele reraised to 1,200 from the cutoff position. Negreanu then reraised to 5,000 on the button before Kiletto moved all in from the small blind for 10,250. Neff folded, Hegele re-shoved, and Negreanu called off his stack for about 33,000.
Hegele had the 
, Negreanu had the 
, and Kiletto had the 
.
The 
flop kept Negreanu’s jacks in the lead, but the 
on the turn vaulted Hegele to the front. Hegele then held with the 
on the river, sending both Negreanu and Kiletto out the door.
For Negreanu, the elimination was simply one of many, as the WPT Champions Club member and former winner of the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event fired six bullets in the unlimited re-entry event. He did end the day with 80,000 in chips, though.
Mike Sexton, WPT Co-Commentator and recent winner of the WPT Montreal Main Event from Playground Poker Club, was eliminated by Jennifer Tilly, and three-time NFL Super Bowl champion Richard Seymour was busted by Jim Carroll. Both of those eliminations occurred in the final level of the day. Tilly went on to finish with one of the larger stacks in the room on 134,225.
Of the notables to bag up sizable chip stacks were Andjelko Andrejevic with 136,400, David Pham with 120,100, and Grayson Ramage with 103,675. Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, Joe Hachem, and comedian Brad Garrett were just a handful of others to compete.
Day 2 begins Tuesday at 12 p.m. local time. Be sure to return to WPT.com for continued coverage of the Season XV WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event.