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.