Cards, Bills in the Air

The WSOP is well underway with the first three events now in action and one -- the $500 Casino Employees No-Limit Hold’em (Event No. 1) -- careening toward a finish later tonight. Found that amusing the WSOP’s firing one-dollar bills into the air to rain over the first event’s players yesterday (pic of the resulting scramble at left via PokerNews).

Event No. 2 earned most of the attention yesterday, of course, a $25,000 buy-in “mixed-max” NLHE event that ended up drawing 131 entrants.

The tourney attracted all the big names as the first high-profile, high buy-in event of the summer, and it seems likely that Friday’s tourney-concluding heads-up matches will provide some of the bigger first-week headlines. Indeed, when it comes to those WSOP Fantasy pools I was discussing yesterday, most of the top finishers in Event No. 2 will likely have been drafted.

It’s the only $25,000 buy-in tourney on this year’s schedule, and indeed $25K is a fairly unique buy-in at the WSOP that has only cropped up three times before.

2013 - No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed (175 entrants)

2011 - No-Limit Hold’em Heads-Up (128 entrants)

2010 - No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed (191 entrants)

The field of 131 for the Mixed-Max tourney probably represents a number somewhat below expectations for the event, although a $3.11 milly prize pool is nonetheless notable (and will be one of the bigger ones all summer).

By the way, check over at PokerNews each morning for recaps and “What to Watch For” articles, of which I’ll be writing some this summer. Still feels like the WSOP hasn’t quite gotten started, though, perhaps because the Casino Employees isn’t an “open” event and the $25K Mixed-Max is kinda sorta exclusive, too, in a way.

In other words, everything still feels up in the air.