There's been endless articles written about how much electricity Las Vegas chews up. It's the lights that shine so fiercely you can see them from space, apparently. While most of us think it's pretty cool, there are those who get all hot and sweaty about the 'waste' of electricity, even if it does give off a brilliant display to any passing astronaut.

But here on the PokerStars Blog I do not wish to belittle those environmentalists/energy fanatics. In fact, while wandering the corridors of the World Series of Poker yesterday I came up with an ingenious plan. A eureka moment, if you like. Such was the rate of player arrivals, followed by equally dramatic and rapid departure numbers, I realized that Harrahs had missed out on quite an energy-saving trick.

It's the doors, you see. Thousands of players were simply walking through open doorways into the giant Amazon room, and the even gianter (is that even a word?) Pavilion room. Why not, I reasoned, install revolving doors that create electricity every time someone walks in - and even more when they rush out again, shoving extra hard to get out quick after busting in the $1,000 no limit event.

The doors would be connected to a generator that harvests the kinetic energy produced when the door spins, and a supercapacitor to store said energy.

With that idea firmly planted, I had to use my considerable mathematical skills to quickly come up with an equation to establish just how much power could be saved. I don't want to boast, but it did not take long to come up with the following*:

Now to work out the figures. Um, say 4,000 players yesterday, in and out of the door at least twice, but certainly more when you factor in routine breaks and dinner. Then there are the spectators, dealers, media and tournament staff. Of course those bad-beated will expel at least four times the force on the door and, oh, I forgot about the drunks who would simply spin round and round in them for ten minutes before finding their way out.

So, to my trusty calculator... bear with me while I tap away....

... ah. It's not that great actually, just about enough to power a few light bulbs each day or maybe an LED display - perhaps one that flashes: 'Busto, please come back soon'. Still, it's a start, and I'm sure the considerable brains of the poker-playing community could improve on it further.

Having established that I can save Las Vegas from the horror of certain meltdown, it's best to move on to what really matters at the Rio. The poker.

Yesterday started brightly (uh, oh, no more talk of lights) for Team PokerStars Pro Noah Boeken, setting out with a tasty stack of 439,000 chips for day 3 of the $50,000 Poker Player's Championship. But it went downhill fast, and he expired in a stud hand against Erik Seidel. Boeken ended up with xxx/[jh][2d][js][3d], but he mucked when Seidel presented him with [ac][ad][9d]/[6h][9h][qd][9c] for a full house.

Team PokerStars Online player George Lind also went in a stud round when he made a straight on fifth street but ran into quads, while Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein, having started the day with just 36,000 was busted by Scott Seiver in a razz hand. The Bear got all in with 7-6-3 but went on to pair twice, while Seiver ended with 8-5-4-3-2.

By the end of the day, just 21 were left in the big-wallet mixed-game event. Michael Mizrachi topped the lot with 1,483,000, just ahead of Vladimir Schmelev with 1,432,000. More notable names missing from the end-of-day counts: Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Scotty Nguyen, Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth and Eli Elezra.

Yesterday also saw day 1B of the $1,000 no limit. Numbers were huge for day 1A - 2,601 - but in the event 'only' 1,744 showed up for 1B. Among them some Team PokerStars Pros, including Jason Mercier, Dario Minieri - sporting, I may add, a Superman top that could have come in useful against the man who announced shuffle up and deal, MMA fighter Randy Couture - Alex Kravchenko, Pat Pezzin and a WSOP 2010 debut for Gavin Griffin.

Pezzin went out horribly, his pocket aces walking into flopped quad tens, while Griffin went out just as nastily, his aces cracked by Terrence Chan's Q-Q - a queen falling on the river. None of the others made it through, either, leaving only Vanessa Rousso, who survived day 1A, to come back for the combined day 2 today.

Event #4, the $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo Split-8 or Better, also got under way yesterday. Some 818 showed up, and only 274 of them survived to bag up chips at the end of the night. Among them were aforementioned Superman Dario Minieri (11,800), Alex Kravchenko (6,500) and George Lind (19,500), all of whom played after busting from earlier events. Those not making it included Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein, Humberto Brenes, George Danzer and Jason Mercier.

Today will be another busy one. As well as all the restarts we have Event #5, the $1,500 No Limit Hold'em, kicking off.

My revolving doors would be spinning into a frenzy.

* Of course I did not come up with that formula

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Tweets of the Day
@JasonMercier: Busto 1500 o8 wsop event 4. Ran pretty awful all tourney

@RealKidPoker: Busto in the Omaha 8. Missed like 6 flush draws in a row. So far I have been running ugly but luckily there are a gazillion events left.

@RealKidPoker: So I have two house guest with me, and just found out there was a third staying in other room last couple days and I had no idea till now.

@barrygreenstein: Caught a guy semibluffing with a gutshot, but he hit it and crippled me. I went out next hand.

@FossilMan: Caught more second best hands. No scoops at all. cya tomorrow in the next event.

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Thought of the Day
Stick to the day job

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Previous WSOP Diary entries
WSOP Diary: Safari, so good for Noah Boeken
WSOP Diary: Barry Greenstein mixes it up in the $50K
WSOP Diary: Going supersize in Las Vegas

Contact blog@pokerstars.com

Imagine you are sitting under a Wild Date Palm tree in the middle of the Serengeti, sipping a nice cup of tea while enjoying the awesome view towards a distant mountain range (okay, this is unlikely, but stick with me). As the sun begins to sink below the horizon, and you swat away a fly with a copy of your favorite poker magazine, you hear a rumble; it's faint and you can barely make it out, but a rumble it is.

You sit upright and now that rumble gets louder. A small cloud of dust rises from the parched earth several miles away. Louder still, and now that dust fills the air - it's something big and it's heading your way. Before you have time to finish your cuppa, you realize you are caught in the middle of a wildebeest migration, thousands of them charging through, caring not for your personal well-being. The sound is deafening, the dust choking. It's scary but exhilarating rolled up in one. Just as well you can climb up the tree to get out of the way.

Now you have some idea of what it was like to stand at the end of the hallway that leads from the Rio down to the convention center, home of the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Dateline 11.45am yesterday. In the distance, a rumble. It got louder, then louder still. This migration would be far more scary than anything in Africa - these were the wild beasts charging towards the Amazon room and Pavilion for the first mass-market tournament of the WSOP, the $1,000 No Limit. In all, 2,601 of them! The $1,000 events attract the masses, drawn to the Rio for their shot at a 'cheap' bracelet. They may not be the best players, certainly not the most wealthy, but this gives them a chance at the big time - and they came in their thousands to take it. And this was only Day 1A.

You may think that many pros would not bother with a $1,000 event, but the big numbers and alleged 'softness' of the field made playing a no brainer. So it was that Team PokerStars Pro had a big showing for the start, including current WSOP world champion Joe Cada.

But more of the $1,000 event later. For while that particular feeding frenzy was getting under way, a much smaller but richer game was reconvening across the hall. This was day two of the $50,000 Poker Player's Championship, home to the majestic lions compared with the wildebeests in the $1,000. They had already played day 1, where only five had perished from the 116 starters. By the end of the night, that field had been slashed by half - only 54 lasting the pace.

Among them, Noah Boeken led the Team PokerStars Pro pride. He finished with 439,000 chips, in 12th place and one of three Team Pros to get through. The others were George Lind, the PokerStars 2010 SCOOP Player of the Series, and Barry Greenstein. Boeken, who shot to fame winning EPT Copenhagen back in season 1, is a prolific cash game player on PokerStars but not necessarily known as a mixed game tournament specialist. This 8-game mixed event would sort the men from the boys - and Boeken stood up to the test.

While household names such as Team PokerStars Pros Daniel Negreanu and Greg Raymer, together with top colleagues like Jason Mercier, Dario Minieri and Alex Kravchenko perished on day 2, Boeken blossomed, winning a succession of big pots, including one big stud hand against wiley Eli Elezra, who got all the way to seventh street with xx/[qh][9s][3c][2c]/x but was way behind the Dutchman's [kd][kh]/[7s][6d][4d][10c]/[kc].

Lind survived the day with rather less - 68,500. He had lost a chunk to end-of-day chip leader Kirk Morrison (741,000), but then busted Mike Matusow in a stud hand, making a flush against 'The Mouth' who had aces and fours. Greenstein, who had started the day tenth with 240,1000, scraped through with 32,000, describing his day in typical understated fashion as "sad".

Of the fallers, Mercier had been sliding and, despite predicting a heater to get himself back among the thick of it, busted in a stud 8/better hand against Eugene Katchalov. Dario Minieri had lost most of his chips in a trademark bluff attempt against Nick Schulman - a big bet with air on a [10c][8h][6d][ks][8c] no-limit hold'em board no match for the American's pocket aces. He fell soon after to Steve Zolotow, a hand that sent the latter up to second in chips.

Raymer was on the wrong end of it all day. He kept trying to convince himself - and everyone else - that he was simply setting up a brilliant comeback story, but there was no happy ending. Ted Forrest felled the Fossilman. What of Daniel Negreanu? Kid Poker was on the rough end of hands and lost a big limit hold'em pot to Phil Ivey, then a significant Razz hand against Eli Elezra just before a break. That left the Canadian with only 8,400 and he busted first hand back against Elezra again, this time in a stud hand.

The other Team PokerStars Pros to fall were Kravchenko and Pat Pezzin, while Friend of PokerStars Bill Chen also exited, a victim of Justin 'BoostedJ' Smith. Chen had A-K on a king-high no-limit hold'em flop but Smith had a set of queens. All the money went in on the turn and Chen never caught up. The 54 survivors of this one will return at 3pm today (Sunday) for the day three re-start.

So what of the $1,000 Day 1A? Well, with that massive 2,061 starting field it was always going to be carnage. Only 276 survived. For carnage, read complete and utter massacre. The wildebeests were slaughtered trying to reach their lush vegetation and watering holes.

Team PokerStars Pro Joe Cada had started in jovial mood - being presented at the start in the cavernous Pavilion as his huge 2009 Main Event victory banner was unfurled before the masses. There then followed a rendition of the US national anthem sung by Matt Goss, starring on stage here in Vegas but otherwise known as one half of the brotherly act Bros (geddit?).

Cada was to fall early, his [kd][jd] bested by [ac][9h], and he was joined on the rail by a list of Team PokerStars Pros so long my pen nearly ran out of ink: Chris Moneymaker, Hevad Khan, Tom McEvoy, Humberto Brenes, Lex Veldhuis, George Danzer, Richard Toth, Martin Hruby, JP Kelly and Johannes Steindl among others who may have been lurking in some corner or other.

Out of all that lot, only Vanessa Rousso survived, bagging up 25,700, a long way behind chip leader Terry Fleischer on 119,300. She had started well, and after one hand, when she flopped a full house holding 5-5, said: "So sick! I'm running the best I ever had!". But there was to be no huge stack building after that.

Day 1B of the $1,000 event starts shortly. There should be an even bigger field than 1A, nudging the total entries to something like 6,000.

That's another herd of wildebeests charging through the Rio. Find that Wild Date Palm tree, climb up, and keep well out of the way.

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Congratulations to Hoai Pham, a dealer at the Village Club Card Room in Chula Vista, California, who bagged the first bracelet of this year's WSOP in the Event #1 $500 Casino Employees tournament. He picked up $71,424.

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Tweets of the Day (large edition)
@PappeRuk: Back to amsterdam after a very nice weekend.. Almost sure im going to vegas on friday.. Gonna play some limit events including the 10k:)

@MarcinHorecki: @NoahBoeken GL!

@MarcelLuske: @NoahBoeken Time 4 a new champion in the 50k.. { dutch would be nice yess . GL tomorrow }

@MarcelLuske: before you know, people just dissapair,, D, Hopper , RIP... We better enjoin us alongside in this world while we can. Gl 2 All {;

@GeorgeLindIII: Got up to 340k then got crushed for an hour all in limit games. Ended day with 68,500. Need some rungood tomorrow

@barrygreenstein: Sad day. I have only t36k. 54 are left. Average is 325k.

@JasonMercier: Busto 50k 8 game. Playin day 1b of the 1k nlhe 2moro

@FossilMan: Something happened to the script. No comeback this time. Stud hand 3 diamonds vs. medium pair. Whiffed.

@RealKidPoker: I'm out. Stud hand Eli raised in last position with. Q I was bring in with 22J needed a 2 on river. Sweated the card it was 2 or 3. 3 brutal

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Thought of the day
A safari holiday in the Serengeti sounds appealing

* * * *

Previous WSOP Diary entries
WSOP Diary: Barry Greenstein mixes it up in the $50K
WSOP Diary: Going supersize in Las Vegas

* * * *

Contact: blog@pokerstars.com

Poker players look forward to the World Series of Poker with as much anticipation as kids waiting excitedly but impatiently for Christmas. While youngsters may get a raw deal, with the fun being over in just a day, the players have two months in which to gorge themselves stupid in Las Vegas. The final course may be a biggie, the $10,000 Main Event starting July 5, but it's the starter that has now taken on more significance for the big names at least.

Last year we had the $40,000 No Limit Hold'em event early in the schedule, this year it was something even grander to kick off the WSOP - the mixed game $50,000 Poker Player's Championship (without wishing to demean Event #1 in any way, the Casino Employees $500 No Limit). This event, officially Event #2, is for those with bulging bankrolls, big hearts, and in some notable cases, supersize egos. So it was that the world's finest came together for the 5pm start, a star-studded bunch sitting with a tempting 150,000 chips, hoping to last the five days of mixed game poker, eight game variants in all.

Such a gathering, in the orange section of an otherwise empty Amazon room at the Rio, was the first opportunity of the year for the railers - fans, fellow players and the plain curious tourists - to get up close to watch their favorites in action. They were two deep as the rail snaked around the section, penning in the stars of the show much like a zoo enclosure keeps its prized exhibits.

What the gawpers were to witness first, however, was not the showboating, not the Mike Matusow play-acting, but the good side of the professional game. The caring side. The winner here gets not only $1,559,046 in prize money, but the David 'Chip' Reece Memorial Trophy, named after the late winner of this event's first airing back in 2006.

His passing still clearly affects those who knew him so well in the big games. Doyle Brunson made a moving speech at the start: "Chip was the best player I ever played with. But more than that he was a class act. Everyone respected and admired him," he said. Brunson then introduced a video about Reece, which included more tributes from players, including Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu, who said: "For me it is poetic that he (Reece) was the first $50,000 event winner - it established the event for ever." More tributes, too, from the likes of Jennifer Harman, who was nearly in tears as she watched the video played back.

With that, Brunson announced shuffle up and deal, and the WSOP was under way. Well, at least it was for most. There was controversy early on when players arriving a little late were told they had to wait until the end of the level until they could join the action. Among those left wandering the floor for anything up to an hour were Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein, Tony G, Josh Arieh and Robert Williamson III. Some were a little more unhappy than others at the new ruling - made apparently so tables were full and balanced at the start of play - but Tony G summed up the feeling of most: "Rules are rules," he said. Greenstein added with a wry smile: "I won't go broke during the first level of the 50k event. They aren't allowing late entrants to play until level 2."

The delay in joining the action was not going to cause Greenstein any problems, however. Despite being sat with the likes of Tony G, Robert Williamson III and Todd Brunson, he was to bag up 240,100 chips at the end of the night, tenth in chips of the 109 survivors. That was a slow rate of attrition from the 116 starters, but this is a five-day marathon. Top of the pile was Sweden's Erik Sagstrom with 329,100.

With a buy in like this, each table would be stacked with names. Team PokerStars had 11 in the field, each of whom made it through the day safely. Greg Raymer shared the felt with fellow Team PokerStars Pros Dario Minieri - resplendent in Gucci - and Noah Boeken, an interesting mix of styles (playing styles and clothing styles) if ever there was one.

Negreanu was the only Team PokerStars Pro at his table, but he did have online phenom Tom 'Durrr' Dwan for company, who's limit hold'em style he was later to describe as more wild than Gus Hansen. Friend of PokerStars Bill Chen had a super-tough table, drawing Jeff Lisandro, Doyle Brunson, Michael Binger and Nick Shulman among others.

Jason Mercier was joined by Team PokerStars Online's George Lind, the PokerStars 2010 SCOOP Player of the Series, as well as Sorel Mizzi and Hoyt Corkins. Alex Kravchenko played with Gus Hansen, while Chad Brown sat next to Carlos Mortensen. New Canadian Team PokerStars Pro Pat Pezzin had the pleasure of Phil Ivey's company.

Of the day's fallers we lost Dan Shak first after a crippling Pot Limit Omaha hand. With a flop of [9c][8s][10s] Shak had a set, but Kelly had the nut straight with a flush re-draw. The flush fell on the river which, along with the turn, had failed to pair the board for Shak. He was left with just 1,100 chips after that, and was out soon after. "Man, that did not go too well," he reflected.

While the second day of this event begins at 3pm, the first day of the first mega no limit hold'em tournament of the WSOP begins at noon. This will attract a huge field, and we expect more Team PokerStars Pros to be among them. Vanessa Rousso and Lex Veldhuis are confirmed. This event, with a $1,000 entry fee, will attract the pros seeking value, but more importantly, perhaps, will draw in the recreational players desperate to get in on the WSOP action for relatively little.

It will mean the Rio will be packed, with the new giant Pavilion area stuffed full of players. While all that commotion goes on - and it will be loud - the 105 survivors of the $50,000 Poker Player's Championship will be going about their business quietly in the Amazon room.

Team Pro finishers from day 1:

Barry Greenstein, 240,100
Dario Minieri, 222,600
Bill Chen, 199,600
George Lind, 187,600
Chad Brown, 165,000
Daniel Negreanu, 148,100
Noah Boeken, 144,400
Jason Mercier, 141,500
Greg Raymer, 109,200
Alex Kravchenko, 104,800
Pat Pezzin, 89,100

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Tweets of the Day

@RealKidPoker: Durr is the most aggro limit player I've ever seen. He makes Gus look like a weak-tight nit. I've seen some very interesting hands so far.

@FossilMan: Hardly played a hand in level 5, and lost those few. One win in NLH, one in PLO. 109 for day 2. Sleep!

@JasonMercier: Finished day 1 w 141500 meh. Rough day happy it's finally over!! Day 2 restart at 3 pm 2moro

@GeorgeLindIII: Nice rush to end the day 187600

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Thought of the day
Casino employees players, $10 dinner voucher
$50,000 championship players, $100 dinner voucher

Contact: blog@pokerstars.com