2014 WSOP Day 1 Recap: $25k Mix-Max and Casino Employee

The World Series of Poker kicked off yesterday, and Day 1 of the first two events – Casino Employees NLHE and Mixed Max NLHE – are in the books.

Vanessa Selbst came out the chip leader in Event #2, with 562,800 chips, which is a little over four times the average. Brian Rast is hot on her heels with 557,400, but no other player has over 400k, so the two of them hold commanding leads over the rest of the field.

Day 1 was 9-max and Day 2 will be 6-max. Both Selbst and Rast got somewhat lucky in their seat draws for 6-max play, avoiding being seated with any other deep stacks and thus enjoying over 2-1 chip advantages against anyone at their tables, which should help them apply maximum pressure during this short-handed play. This is a four day event, and the following days will be 4-max and heads-up respectively.

As a $25,000 High Roller, this event drew a relatively small 131-player field, which nonetheless produces a nice prize pool, with $871,148 for the eventual winner. Selbst has been doing well in high roller events of late, with three of her top 5 all-time cashes having come in big-ticket events in the past two years. Rast is on quite the heater as well, with 1st and 3rd place finishes in $25k events in the past two months. Expect fireworks if and when these two end up seated together!

Other big names still in the running for Event #2 are Mike Mizrachi in third place with just under 400k, Phil Ivey with 203k, JC Tran at 186k, Phil Hellmuth at 181k, Sam Trickett with 160k, and finally Daniel Negreanu, hanging on as a short stack with 61k.

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