Day 1 of the Tournament of Champions at the 2022 World Series of Poker (WSOP) is in the books and saw Robert Cowen bagging the chip lead over the 149 remaining players. Cowen, who won his second bracelet this year in Event #28: $50,000 High Roller Pot-Limit Omaha, ended the day with 428,000 chips to lead other big stacks including Ali Eslami (305,000), Christopher Bissinger (300,500) and Daniel Sepiol (285,000).
The million-dollar freeroll, offered exclusively to bracelet and Circuit ring winners during the 2022 WSOP season, drew 463 entrants on Day 1 and could see more of the 575 eligible players enter on Day 2 as late registration remains open to the start of the day.
Tournament of Champions Top 10 Chip Counts
Place
Player
Country
Chips
Big Blinds
1
Robert Cowen
United Kingdom
428,000
214
2
Ali Eslami
United States
305,000
153
3
Daniel Sepiol
United States
285,000
143
4
Aleksejs Ponakovs
Latvia
247,500
124
5
Zachary Seymour
United States
241,000
121
6
Daniel Strelitz
United States
235,000
118
7
Cheryl Svenson
United States
221,500
111
8
Carlos Loving
United States
203,000
102
9
Fred Li
United States
183,500
92
10
Erik Bauer
Slovakia
183,000
92
Many of the summer's top performers were present in the Day 1 field, including WSOP Player of the Year Dan Zack, who was awarded his commemorative trophy by WSOP Vice President Jack Effel early in the day, as well as players who won bracelets this year like Daniel Strelitz, Daniel Weinman, David Jackson, Alex Livingston and Eli Elezra.
Italy's Gianluca Speranza squeaked into the event after winning his maiden bracelet hours earlier in [Online] Event #12: $5,300 No-Limit Hold'em High Roller Freezeout Encore for $324,625 to make himself eligible. The same is true for Ryan Messick and Fred Li, who managed to qualify at the 11th hour.
The field also included a number of players who earned their WSOP hardware by grinding the Circuit, including Angelina Rich, Justin Matecki, Joseph Rice, Kathy Sawers, Alan Gibson and Robert Lamanna.
Day 2 will commence at 11 a.m. local time in the Bally's Event Center Gold section beginning with Level 11 and blinds of 1,000/2,000/2,000. The plan right now is to play ten 60-minute levels with a 60-minute dinner break after Level 16, which is expected to wrap up around 5:30 p.m. Day 3 will follow and will play down to a winner who will take home the last bracelet of the series.
Stay tuned as PokerNews will be back on-site tomorrow to follow the action in the 2022 WSOP Tournament of Champions.