Day 1D at the World Series of Poker certainly had quite a few challenges to present to the average person. With the 2008 champion Peter Eastgate in the group of players playing on the final opening day, there were certainly a lot of people looking to take down the former champion early. Erick Lindgren, last year’s Player of the Year, was also in attendance. One unfortunate fellow had the misfortune of being paired with both of those players at different times during the day. We didn’t get a chance to see if he survived through to the time of writing just after the dinner break, but he certainly had a poker experience that he will never forget.

Another player that was in the field on Day 1D was Phil Ivey. Now, Phil Ivey is perhaps best known for being the single greatest player in poker at the current moment in time. Or at least, that is what Norman Chad says every single year when he actually picks Phil Ivey as the person to win the tournament at the start of each year’s Main Event. Well, if you were going to bed on one person out of a field of thousands, Phil Ivey would definitely be that person. He is certainly the most dynamic player in poker right now and arguably the best as well. Through most of the day, he was able to grow his chip stack to a decent amount. Hopefully, we will be able to see him around for the other days as at the dinner break he looked like he had a pretty comfortable stack of chips.

There were a lot of other famous players in action on this day. Vanessa Russo, Scott Fischman, Daniel Alaei and Josh Arieh were some of the other famous professionals. In the field as well was Ray Romano, the actor best known for the television series Everybody Loves Raymond. Some of them did well and some of them not so much, although we really need to wait until the second day is over to really know who might have a chance at running deep.