2007 World Series of Poker - Day 1 Recap

The 2007 World Series of Poker officially kicked off on June 1st, and there were plenty of fireworks right from the beginning. For the first time in WSOP history, two events were being played simultaneously on opening day - the $5000 World Championship Mixed Games event and the $500 Casino Employees event.

Long registration lines seemed to irritate many players, and things didn’t improve once the players got to their tables. The new ‘Poker Peek’ cards provided by the U.S. Playing Card Company were not at all popular with players. Early on, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow exclaimed, “Did you see these cards? You can’t see the cards!”

Multi-time WSOP champion Doyle Brunson took one look at the cards and issued the following comment: “What the hell are these?”

Enough of a stink was made that the cards were eventually replaced by normal KEM cards three hours into the event. Some players were even upset to the point that they requested their buy-ins back. With the precedent set, future events may also see the ‘Poker Peek’ cards replaced by the more standard KEM brand.

After all the controversy died down, 452 players settled in for the $5000 Mixed Game event which split between limit and no-limit Hold’em. Participants included Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Chris Moneymaker, Daniel Negreanu, Greg Raymer, Andy Black, T.J. Cloutier and Phil Ivey. Gun Hansen and Phil Hellmuth also played, although both men showed up after the event had started.

As the day went on, onlookers got to see Chris Ferguson, David Ulliott, Freddy Deeb, Nam Le and Phil Ivey all get eliminated from the event. Strong performances were turned in from Eric Froehlich, Todd Brunson, Josh Arieh, Vanessa Rousso and Isabelle Mercier. At the end of the day (with less than 100 players remaining), the Top 10 chip leaders were:

Greg 'FBT' Mueller — 130,000

Frank Kassela — 121,500

Sabyl Cohen — 118,500

Louis Werman — 110,500

Mark Teltscher — 100,500

John Kroshvs — 93,000

John Younger — 91,500

Kirk Morrison — 90,500

Alex Bolotin — 88,000

Joseph Tehan — 87,500

For more on the WSOP, please see the following articles from Dare to Gamble:

World Series of Poker - Bodog Odds

World Series of Poker - More Bodog Odds

2007 World Series of Poker - Day 1 Recap