It's another gorgeous summer day just steps away from one of the most powerful and beautiful waterfalls in the World here at the Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel in Niagara Falls, NY.
But inside the Niagara Falls Poker Room there's stacks of cash and a 2015 Seneca Niagara Falls Summer Slam Main Event title on the line, so the 90 players returning to fight for it today might have something else on their minds besides the weather.
The attractive $550+$50 buy-in attracted a whopping 504 entries from all over the surrounding area and beyond, creating a guarantee-crushing $267,498 prizepool. Some 54 of these 90 returning rounders will be guaranteed at least $1,150 for a min-cash, but most will be looking up at the $61,535 on top - Or at least the five-figure scores reserved for fifth or better.
Those with the best view right now include Erie, PA's Jeff Wells with the overall lead sitting on a massive 456,000-chip stack and Hollywood actor and savvy poker veteran Kirk Acevedo, whose looking to add to his six-figures in career tournament earnings with a deep run here while on some down time from the filming of a TV show in nearby Toronto, Canada.
Day 1a chip leader and solid local tourney grinder Jeffrey Hobrecker and Torontonian William Liang are the only other two players over 300,000 in chips right now.
However, there's a number local legends still stacked, including David "Dae Dae" Battaglia, coming off a final table appearance in one of the Summer Slam prelims and Blake Napierala, who has made two final tables so far this series and won Event #4 the night before the Main Event started.
Add in the fact defending Summer Slam and Western New York Poker Challenge Main Event champ Buck Ramsay is still in it and sitting on a six-figure stack and it's going to be a tough job trying to get this money out of the regulars here.
Things will get started around 11 a.m. local time with the start of Level 16 featuring 2,000/4,000 blinds and a 500-chip ante.
This cast of characters playing for a chunk of change this large is guaranteed to be exciting and PokerNews will be on the floor the entire way through. Stay tuned for Live Updates all day long until a 2015 Seneca Niagara Falls Summer Slam champ is crowned.