2014 World Series of Poker

With only two limit hold'em tournaments on the 2014 World Series of Poker schedule, it wasn't a surprise to see a rather large turnout of 657 entrants for Event #43: $1,500 Limit Hold'em.

When play concluded at nearly 3 a.m. local time, it was Paul Mannoni who was sitting atop the leaderboard with 60,900 in chips. It's a tightly-packed bunch at the top with Paul Tedeschi (60,700), Matthew Davenport (58,700), Rob O'Shea (57,000), and Michael Lynn (55,400) all within striking distance of Mannoni.

Other notables that would be among the 118 that survived included Allyn Jeffrey Shulman (47,300), Jeff Shulman (32,000), Berry Johnston (41,900), Mike Laing (47,900), Todd Witteles (36,400), Jeff Lisandro (30,900), Dan Kelly (25,500), Mike Leah (12,700), Antonio Esfandiari (11,600), Brandon Shack-Harris (39,400), Terrence Chan (24,400), David Chiu (12,600), and Daniel Negreanu (12,600). Negreanu was moderately disappointed with his end-of-day performance, but promised on Twitter to run it up when play resumed on Day 2.

There were plenty of big names that would not make the cut, including Phil Ivey, who registered late and was gone within an hour. Others joining Ivey on the rail were Tom Schneider, Rep Porter, Marcel Luske, Barry Greenstein, Greg Mueller, Stephen Chidwick, Humberto Brenes, Jeff Gross, and Eric Buchman.

The surviving players will return at 2 p.m. PT on Saturday and will play 10 more levels. The event is paying 72 places, so the money bubble should be reached in the early evening. Tune in to PokerNews to find out who makes it deep and who falls short, and in the meantime, enjoy the fourth episode of Ivey Stories.

The tournament floor staff has just announced we will be playing four more hands tonight before bagging and tagging. Tomorrow's restart will be at 2 P.M. in the tan section of the Amazon room.

We arrived at the table with Terrence Chan all in against the player to his immediate left, and the board reading . Chan's opponent tabled for a flopped full house, and then jumped out of his seat as Chan turned over for a better full house.

The following players are no longer with us:

Eric Bensomochan is the current chip leader and has been stacking chips all day. If Bensomochan is able to carry on his momentum into the money, this would be his first recorded live cash.