POKER PLAYER

World Series of Poker Event #55, the annual Poker Player's championship got underway Saturday at the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino.

The $55,000 buy-in mixed games event features eight variations of poker and is considered to be among the most prestigious events of the year. The event attracts poker’s top brass, each in contention for this year’s top prize, worth over $1.7 million dollars and the WSOP gold bracelet.

This year’s Poker Player's Championship saw a 10 percent increase in participation as 128 players ponied up the $50,000 entry fee, generating a total prize pool of $6,144,000.

Overall WSOP participation is up over 2010, fueled mainly by an increase in participation of the smaller buy-in events. While this year’s influx of $1,000 buy-in players has been dismissed by critics as an unreliable gauge of the state of poker post-Black Friday, turnout in the $50k cannot as easily be overlooked.

Day One came to a close late Saturday night with Doug Booth atop the chip leader board with 324,600 in chips. Trailing just behind Booth is Greg Mueller sitting on 322,700 in chips.

Last year’s champion, Michael  “The Grinder” Mizrachi ended the day near the bottom of the leader board with just over 8,000 chips and will be looking for some help on day two as he defends his title.

A total of five players saw their exit on day one, leaving the remaining 123 players to return tomorrow at 3:00pm to resume play.

You can follow the action as it happens right here at WSOP.com