LAS VEGAS (AP) " Top poker professionals and amateurs with deep pockets put up $40,000 apiece Thursday to square off in the first major tournament at the World Series of Poker.
The series kicked off seven weeks of poker tournaments at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino, where thousands of players will gamble against one another for millions of dollars and one of 57 gold bracelets awarded to winners of the various games.
The series culminates with its $10,000 no-limit Texas Hold 'em main event, a tournament that crowns the World Series of Poker champion each year. Last year, Peter Eastgate topped a field of 6,844 to win $9.15 million and the coveted title.
The first of thousands of hands of poker took place Wednesday when a tournament for casino employees was held.
On Thursday, Eastgate announced the famous line of "Shuffle up and deal" to start the first open tournament before taking his seat at the $40,000 no-limit Texas Hold 'em event.
He and the others around him were greeted by a gantlet of poker stars packed into 22 tables.
There were 201 entrants, with 27 players to be paid at least $71,858. The total prize pool for the tournament was $7.72 million, with the winner to be paid $1.89 million.
"Please don't let me be at this table," said four-time bracelet winner John Juanda " who was later eliminated " as he passed the green felt where Daniel Negreanu and Dennis Phillips sat side-by-side.
Negreanu has won four tournaments and cashed 34 times at the series, winning $2.2 million since 1998. Phillips charged onto the poker scene last year by taking third place in the main event, winning $4.5 million.
"This is gonna be pretty special," Phillips told The Associated Press.
Phillips said the extra-expensive buy-in for the tournament means play is starting without weak players at the table " as if the tournament began in the middle with its best players still in.
Huckleberry Seed, a Las Vegas poker pro with four gold bracelets who won the main event in 1996, said the $40,000 buy-in tournament has conditions opposite of the main event.
"Smallest and toughest field, as opposed to the largest and easiest field," Seed said.
Tournament officials are hoping for a star-studded final table to begin its 40th series.
Players began with 120,000 in chips and a slow, deep structure that gave them the chance to maneuver without being forced into bad decisions early.
Poker professional Phil Laak said he was "on cloud nine" after more than doubling his chip stack during the first hour of play, saying he did not expect to win so many chips so quickly.
Laak had 282,000 chips when players took their first break, but he lost nearly two-thirds that stack within two hours.
The no-limit format of the game means that players can risk all their chips " and their place in the tournament " at any time. Chips have no monetary value and are used to show each player's position in the game compared with each other.
To win, a player must win all the chips.
The $40,000 buy-in event is the highest buy-in ever for a no-limit Texas Hold 'em event at the World Series of Poker, and was added this year to mark the 40th anniversary of the series. The series also has a mixed-game H.O.R.S.E. event each year that costs $50,000 to enter.
But the poker world points to the main event, which begins July 3 and continues play until July 15 when the field of thousands is reduced to nine players. As it did for the first time last year, the tournament will then take a nearly four-month break until Nov. 7, when the nine remaining players will reconvene and play off for poker's biggest prize.
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