Calvin Anderson Leads 93 Survivors After Day 1 of $25,000 High Roller
It was an action-packed day at the 2023 World Series of Poker that saw Event #16: $25,000 High Roller attract a total of 264 entries on the first day of the tournament. With late registration still open for the time being, there is a chance it could be the largest $25,000 buy-in event that the WSOP has ever hosted. The field was dwindled down to just 93 players by the night's end and they will be returning for Day 2 Wednesday.
It should come as little surprise that the man leading the way after the first eight levels was none other than Calvin Anderson. Entering the field in the second half of the day, Anderson wasted little time putting his starting stack of 150,000 chips to work. In just three levels, the American poker pro managed to spin up his stack to 1,609,000, good enough for the overall chip lead.
Anderson often has a knack for running up a stack in a short period of time and he had no trouble doing so today. With two WSOP bracelets to his name already - coming in the Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo and Razz variants - Anderson will be looking to add a no-limit hold'em victory to his list of accomplishments. A deep run in this high-stakes event could also lead to Anderson capturing his largest career score of a little over $300,000.
There will be lots of work still to be done as Anderson will have to compete with some of the best poker players in the world over the course of the next two days in order to accomplish the feat. For now, he will be returning to a stack of more than 160 big blinds and has put himself in a good spot to make another deep run.
End of Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Calvin Anderson | United States | 1,609,000 | 161 |
| 2 | Freddy Deeb | United States | 1,440,000 | 144 |
| 3 | Brian Kim | United States | 1,291,000 | 129 |
| 4 | Isaac Haxton | United States | 1,195,000 | 120 |
| 5 | Alex Nguyen | United States | 1,060,000 | 106 |
| 6 | Calvin Lee | United States | 979,000 | 98 |
| 7 | Ting-Yi Tsai | Taiwan | 947,000 | 95 |
| 8 | Biao Ding | United States | 790,000 | 79 |
| 9 | Nick Maimone | United States | 783,000 | 78 |
| 10 | Eric Wasserson | United States | 780,000 | 78 |
Day 1 Action
A massive field of high rollers showed up for Day 1 today, surpassing the 251 entries that were recorded just one year ago. When play ended for the night, the tournament clock read a total of 264 entries with late registration still open until the start of Day 2 at 12:00 noon PDT.
It took some time for the big stacks to emerge and it was Isaac Haxton who jumped out to the first seven-figure stack of the day. Haxton got max value with his pocket kings against Darren Elias who flopped top pair. Haxton ran into some problems later in the day when his bluff attempt failed against David Coleman who flopped top set. Haxton still managed to bag one of the larger stacks and will return with 1,195,000.
Another big stack that vaulted to the top of the leaderboard was Freddy Deeb with 1,441,000 chips. While Deeb falls into the category of the "old-school players," he proved today that he can still hang with the young guns. But he'll have to keep it going for another two days if he wants to add another WSOP gold bracelet to his collection.
Brian Kim (1,291,000) and Alex Nguyen (1,060,000) were the only other two players to bag up over one million chips. Both players had an extremely successful day at the table and were among the chip leaders for the majority of the day.
There were only two WSOP Main Event champions that managed to skate their way through the field and advance to Day 2. Espen Jorstad (377,000) and Joe McKeehen (320,000) were here for the first hand of the day and also played the last. As for Ryan Riess, Phil Hellmuth, Martin Jacobson, Joe Cada, and Koray Aldemir, they were all eliminated within the last couple of levels.
The field was littered with big names which was to be expected for the $25,000 buy-in. It will be a who's who when the action resumes tomorrow as the field makes its way into the money and players position themselves for the final table. The cards will go back in the air at 12:00 p.m. with another ten levels on the schedule for Day 2.
The blinds will resume on Level 9 at 5,000/10,000 and a 10,000 big blind ante. There will be a 15-minute break after every two levels and a 60-minute dinner break is scheduled for after Level 14.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be here to bring you all of the live updates throughout the day for more exciting high-stakes tournament action.