Main Event day 1a kicks off.

The € 10,450 Primary Event started off with Michael Mizrachi seemingly unbeatable. Day 1A of the 2012 WSOP Europe Main Event was one of those times. He already has two WSOP bracelets and finished top of the Day 1A leader board with 234,850 Chips.

Mizrachi’s Day 1A performance was amazing and he was the only gamer to finish with more than 200,000 chips. However amongst the rest of the top ten there are still other well known poker players. Seated in second is JC Alvarado with 180,675, ruling Aussie Millions champion Oliver Speidel rests at 7th overall with 110,000 while Dan Shak rests 10th with 110,875.

The starting day of the tournament attracted 215 gamers, down 95 from last year’s figures. Last season 593 entered the Main event Day 1B will have to pull in 378 gamers to be able to match or beat the record number of entrants in 2011.

Included in those gamers who out on Day 1A were Matthew Salsberg, Oleksii Kovalchuk, Dan O’Brien, Chelsea Moorman, Vanessa Selbst and Fabrice Soulier. 115 gamers lived through the day and will be in place on Day 2. There are some well known names amongst these include Philipp Gruissem (90,500), Bob O’Dwyer (89,000), Scott Seiver (78,000), Alex Kravchenko (65,000), Phil Ivey 55,000. Present BLUFF Player of the Year leader Dan Cruz will also be returning on Day 2 with 45,000 chips. Reigning WSOPE Primary Occasion champion Elio Fox managed to grab 65,000 to end the day.

Here are the top ten winners with their chip counts following Day 1A of the WSOP Europe Main Event:

Michael Mizrachi – 234,850
JC Alvarado – 180,675
Sergii Baranov – 152,000
Martial Blangenwitsch – 129,800
Denis Biscaldi – 122,625
Henry Tran – 118,750
Oliver Speidel – 110,000
Tom Bedell – 106,000
Gael Duchesne – 102,000
Dan Shak – 100,875

The € 1,650 Six-handed Pot limit Omaha game was the last bracelets event planned and it presented a bit of a misnomer, as the ultimate desk of the Six-handed Pot Restrict Omaha hold’em event began with only five gamers after Nikolay Volper went out after they had decided to play out the level on the Friday night. Phil Lichtenberger joined the last table as the chipleader, but faied to win his first WSOP bracelets as he went out in fifth. Ana Marquez was looking to become only the second lady to win a WSOPE bracelets and the first to do so since Annette Obrestad’s Primary Occasion win returning in 2007. But it was record of a different type being created Weekend evening as Francisco Da Costa Santos won his first WSOP bracelet of his career and this was the first WSOP success by a Portuguese gamer.

Although numbers have down at the WSOPE across the board, Day 1b of the Main Event is expected to be bigger with poker stars Daniel Negreanu, Tristan Wade and Jason Mercier among the many players set to hit the tables.
The tournament has a long ways to go, however, before it gets anywhere close to the 593 entrants that played last year.