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WPT World Poker Classic Bellagio Day 1

The World Poker Tour (WPT) is celebrating its 10^th anniversary at the $10,000 Five Diamond World Poker Classic at Bellagio. The first WPT event was won by Gus Hansen in 2002 when he came on top of the 146 players field, won $556,460 top prize and became an instant poker superstar.

This year 365 players took their seats at the tables in Day 1, this makes the field so far significantly smaller compared to last year when 438 players took part. 2010 event was won by Antonio Esfandiari, who earned the top prize of $870,000. The registrations this year will stay open until Level 8 in Day 2 so the hopes are that the number of participants will increase to over 400.

The defending champion Esfandiari got off to a good start and held chip lead for most part of the day. However it was Vanessa Selbst who ended up at the top spot with 165.800 chips, more than four times the starting stack. Most of her chip came from just one hand against another famous pro player Victor Ramdin, when she sent him to the rail in a set over set collision.

Other well-known players with good chip stacks include Darren Elias (130,000), Allen Kessler (108,475), Chris Klodnicki (106,750), Will Failla (101,325), Antonio Esfandiari (97,350), Erik Seidel (93,100), Hoyt Corkins (91,800), Matt Glantz (91,000), David Williams (89,650), David Pham (87,700), Matt Giannetti (86,175) and Carlos Mortensen (84,150).

Day 2 will commence at 12:00 PST on Wednesday when 283 surviving players will return to the felt. The registrations will remain open until 17:00 PST. The total prize pool information is expected to be announced shortly after the registrations are completed.

Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts