Norway in the Lead at the WSOP

Day 1B of the World Series of Poker ended with Norway’s Dag Mikkelsen in the lead. He was then followed by many of the big names that people are used to hearing: Joe Hachem, Scotty Nguyen, Tom McEvoy, Berry Johnston and Dan Harrington – all of whom are previous WSOP champs.

Montel Williams, Robert Mizrachi, John Duthie, Richard Lee, Evelyn Ng, Matt Matros, David “The Dragon” Pham, Doug Kim, Tony G. and Cliff Josephy will all be continuing on to Day 2 as well as the above. They have all survived the first day, which turned out to be a long one, at 15 hours. They started out with more than 6,000 players and whittled it down to the cream of the crop – or at least the top 1,700 or so.

There was even a blind player allowed to play after some discussion from the organizers. It was decided he could play and they allowed a sighted “whisperer” at his side, but he was eliminated anyway during the course of the day. There was also a slight uproar from David Singer who, when eliminated, blamed it on a cell phone ringing – but the judges said no way and he was out.

When the day officially ended Mikkelson had $236,000, Jeff Banghart had $186,200 and Albert Strickland had $180,700. They were the top three, and they can only hope to hold onto their leads as they go into Day 1C.

 

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