2005 World Series of Poker
Main Event
Day 1B

UPDATE 2:31 p.m.
People are being eliminated as we write. Some of the latest are Tobey Maguire, Kathy Liebert, Karina Jett, and John Bonetti. Phil Hellmuth Jr. arrived around 1:40 p.m. to take his seat at the tables. Some of the online qualifiers have had problems adjusting to playing outside of the virtual world. Several had asked for help as they earned their seat online, but have never played at a real table before and did not know what to do. Although we advocate earning seats by playing online, it's a good idea to go to a brick and mortar poker room and play some hands. You want to make your mistakes and learn before going to the WSOP Main Event.

UPDATE 4:45 p.m.
Joe Awada, Paul Sexton, Daniel Negreanu, Todd Brunson and Maureen Feduniak are among those not making it to the next round. In an interesting situation, we learned why in championship tournaments players always place items on their cards while in play. This gesture is to "protect" their cards and not have them mistaken for mucked hands. Today one player who's cards were not protected were hit by another player who mucked their hand. Because there was no distinction to note if the unfortunate player's cards were in play or not, the dealer took both hands from both players and the dealer's decision was backed by the tournament director.

UPDATE 7:25 p.m.
There are 1,150 players left still in the competition for Day 1B. Being adding to the list of non participants are Evelyn Ng, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Max Pescatori, Erick Lindgren and Antonio Esfandiari. Current chip counts and the players are in this order #1 Dan Collin 95,000, #2 Sammy Farha 78,000, #3 Matt Poucher 41,500, #4 Eric Sagstrom 37,500 and #5 Phillip Post with 33,000. Paul Phillips, Young Phan, Joe Beevers, David Williams and Chris Moneymaker are also still in the action.

UPDATE 10:01 p.m.
We are down to about 990 players at the tables currently. Phil Hellmuth Jr. is doing well at the ESPN featured table, working his way up to 52,000 chips under the watchful eye of the cameras. Some players who have not taken the cursing rules seriously, have been penalized with 10 and 20 minute blocks of time while their chip stacks are blinded away. One entrant after receiving 20 minutes, responded by scotch taping his mouth for all to see. Eliminations continue to climb with David Williams being the latest casualty along with Dewey Tomko, Hasan Habib, Senthil Kumar, Eli Elezra, John Hennigan and Perry Freidman.

UPDATE 12:15 a.m.
The pace has quickened and tables are breaking up a lot faster with more players being retired. One reason is that the tournament director has ordered any and all spectators to leave so players can focus on their hands. Presently there are less than 800 players. Some of those still in the field include David Sklansky, Young Phan, Pat Poels, Phil Hellmuth Jr., Alex Brenes Jr., Amir Vahedi, Paul Phillips, Chris Moneymaker, Annie Duke and David Sklansky.

UPDATE 2:45 a.m.
We have reached the end of Day 1B. About just under 620 players from 62 tables have begun the "chip bagging party" where all chips earned by players are gathered for play on Day 2. But unfortunately for Phil Hellmuth Jr. he was eliminated at 2:00 a.m. and will not join the survivors of Day 1B. Day 1C will begin at 11:00 a.m. on July 9th, (actually in just a few hours).

• #1 Haakon Waerstad -- 159,000
• #2 Sammy Farha -- 130,000
• #3 Jeff Dziedzic -- 130,000
• #4 Carmel Petresca -- 116,000
• #5 David Rheen -- 115,000
• #6 Scott Lazar -- 110,000
• #7 Brad Kondracki -- 105,000
• #8 Peter Hedlund -- 95,000
• #9 Charlie Morris -- 84,000
• #10 Farzad Bonyadi -- 84,000