Day 1 of Event #53: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em has come to an end. The largest $1,500 NLHE event of the series thus far not named the Millionaire Maker drew an impressive 2,816 entrants, generating a prize pool of $3,801,600. First place will pay $665,397 and leading the remaining 320 or so players is Alban Juen with 168,300. He is followed by Arden Cho (124,800) and Chance Kornuth (120,300).
Among the notables still in the field are David Vamplew (98,800), Noah Vaillancourt (72,900), 2012 Octo-Niner Steve Gee (59,100), Brent Hanks (53,500), Danny Suied (41,000), Barry Greenstein (36,400), Faraz Jaka (26,100), Matt Waxman (25,000), and Paul Volpe (16,900).
Also taking part in the action today was Antonio Esfandiari, fresh off of his fourth-place finish in the One Drop High Rollers No-Limit Hold'em. Unfortunately, Esfandiari didn't survive the day. Also among those who will not return on Day 2, include Lauren Kling, Darryll Fish, Maria Ho, Phil Laak, Matt Stout, and Luke Vrabel.
Play is set to resume at 1 p.m. local time on Sunday as the remaining 320-ish players play down towards the final table. Be sure to join us then as the quest to crown another WSOP bracelet winner continues.
We caught an exciting hand with Antonio Esfandiari, where he used a little humor, magic and luck to double-up.
Esfandiari faced a raise from an opponent to his immediate left, and tried getting a read on him by asking his name. After the player wouldn't answer, Esfandiari contemplated for a few seconds before asking for a clarification on the rules.
"Is this all-in?," Esfandiari jokingly asked the dealer as he kept inching his stack forward without releasing the chips from his hand. "How about now?," he jibed again, sliding his stack further into the pot. With a magician's flourish, Esfandiari dropped the chips, and his opponent immediately called, flipping over .
"Oops," exclaimed Esfandiari, tabling the far-behind , as the table chuckled. The flop came , giving Esfandiari the nut-flush draw. "Let me run good one time!" said the excited Esfandiari after picking up the draw.
The turn came , completing Esfandiari's flush and cracking his opponent's aces. Esfandiari is now at around 9,800 in chips.
We were just called over to Table 19 by a gentleman, who let us know how recent bracelet winner, Michael Gathy, had taken out a player, quads over quads. Gathy held and his opponent had , with the two betting hard on every street, as the board ran out .
That’s right, Gathy hit running queens, to defeat his opponent, as he races up to 9,700 in chips.
Welcome back to the Rio All-Suite Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, for Event #53 $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em. This will be the second last $,1500 event of the series, with eight already completed, and one other coming to an exciting close.
The hugely popular event has already seen massive playing fields, and big first place prizes awarded, with the average number of players reaching 2,000, and first taking home around half a million in prize money.
The tournament will start at 12:00pm, in just under an hour’s time. Players will start out with 4,500 in chips and the first level will be 25/25. Ten one-hour levels will see out the day, so make sure you stayed tuned here, as PokerNews brings you all the live updates, here at Event #53 of the 2013 WSOP.
2013 World Series of Poker No-Limit Hold'em Champions
Event
Winner
Entries
First Prize
4
NLHE
6-max
John Beauprez
1,096
$324,764
6
NLHE
Millionaire Maker
Benny Chen
6,343
$1,198,780
14
NLHE
Jonathan Taylor
1,819
$454,424
17
NLHE
Athanasios Polychronopoulos
2,105
$518,755
24
NLHE
Corey Harrison
1,731
$432,411
28
NLHE
Jason Duval
2,115
$521,202
40
NLHE
Jared Hamby
2,161
$525,272
45
NLHE
Ante-Only
Ben Volpe
678
$201,399
For now, be sure to check out Sarah Grant’s June 29th recap below.
![[user139916]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
.
, as the table chuckled. The flop came 
, giving Esfandiari the nut-flush draw. "Let me run good one time!" said the excited Esfandiari after picking up the draw.
, completing Esfandiari's flush and cracking his opponent's aces. Esfandiari is now at around 9,800 in chips.
