WSOP Main Event

The World Series of Poker Main Event began on Thursday (July 3). The four different "day ones" were Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. "Day Twos" are today and tomorrow.

Although exact figures are hard to come by, these numbers are approximately correct:

Day 1a: 636 of 1297 players (49%) advanced to Day 2.
Day 1b: 615 of 1158 players (53%) advanced to Day 2.
Day 1c: 1026 of 1928 players (53%) advanced to Day 2.
Day 1d: 1352 of 2461 players (55%) advanced to Day 2.

A total of 3663 players (53.5%) remain from a field of 6844.
Not sure where the extra 34 players came from.

The buy-in for each player was $10,000.
Each player started with 20,000 in chips.
The blinds for the 1st round were 50 and 100.
Each round lasts two hours.
The chip leader after all four day ones had 242,950 chips.

They will play through July 14 until only nine players remain.
For the first time ever the final table will be played apart from the rest of the tournament.
The final table will be Sunday and Monday, November 9 and 10.
The average stack at the final table should be approximately 15,200,000.
First place pays $9,119,517.

Here's an interesting anecdote from late Sunday night:
How do you make sure you make it to Day 2? You try not to play any hands at the end of Day 1. A recent hand in the Blue section took over ten minutes to complete, and it never made it past the flop. It seems that several players at the table were stalling, so they would be assured of making Day 2 and not busting in the waning moments of Day 1. One of the other players at the table wasn't so thrilled, and asked the dealer to call a floor person. That floor person than called the clock on two different people in the same hand, and remains stationed at the table for the remainder of the level (as of this writing, another six minutes). Each player will have only 30 seconds to make a decision through the end of the night.