Just short of 1 500 entrants started the World Series of Poker Main Event action around noon in Vegas Tuesday as Day 2B kicked off at the Rio, with many highly recognisable names among the packed tables.
By 12.45am early Wednesday morning - just short of 12 hours and five levels later - the field was down to 630 survivors, all of whom will now go forward to the merged field on July 10th for Day 3.
Unofficial chip counts suggest that Eric Cloutier held the lead at the end of Day 2B play with around 384 000, but at least seven other players were over the 300 000 chip mark when officials called it a day. Among them were Greg Mueller, Brandon Demes and Ed Perry.
Missed this year, want to qualify early for the 2010 Wsop. Bodog Poker is already running qualifiers.
Celeb Brad Garrett of 'Everyone Loves Raymond' fame lasted well into the night until busted out on a failed all in call. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander, who started with a very useful 90 000 in chips, was still in the hunt.
The list of big names eliminated is almost as interesting as those that have survived, however.
Losing their Main Event dreams this year were Barry Greenstein, Gus Hansen, Sandra Naujoks, Johnny Chan, Jon "PearlJammed" Turner, Johannes Strassmann, Barry Shulman, Jennifer Tilly, Brian Townsend, Jerrod Ankenman, Phil Laak, Sam Khouiss, John Hennigan, 97-year old Jack Ury, Tony G, Matt Woodward, Raymond Davis, Jason Mercier, Ravi "govshark2" Raghavan, Shaun Deeb, Lex Veldhuis, Hoyt Corkins, Erik Cajelais, Mel Judah, Wendeen Eolis, Billy "The Croc" Argyros, Mike Matusow, Bill Sineath, Gavin Smith, Amarillo Slim Preston, Dewey Tomko, Juha Helppi, Mike Gracz, Todd Brunson and Alex Kravchenko.
