The 2015 World Series of Poker kicked off on Wednesday with two events: the $500 Casino Employees Event and a $5,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament. The latter had a field of 422 and, after one day of play, Ludovic ludovi333Geilich and Joe ender555Ebanks (pictured) sat in second and third, respectively, behind chip leader Darryl Ronconi.

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Ronconi will come armed to Day 2 on Thursday with a stack of 211,000. He’s the only player to pass the 200,000-chip mark. Geilich has a stack of 194,000, while Ebanks bagged up 182,000.

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A total of 171 players survived the first day of the $5,000 NLHE tournament, the second event on the 2015 WSOP schedule. At stake is a $466,000 top prize and a WSOP bracelet. Forty-five players will finish in the money and play resumes on Tuesday at 2:00pm PT from the Rio in Las Vegas, the site of the annual WSOP.

Two recent WSOP Main Event champions are left in the field: Greg gregy20723Merson (pictured) and Martin Jacobson. Merson chipped up on one of the final hands of the day, after putting in a raise on an 8-2-6-7-5 board and getting his opponent to fold. He finished the day with a stack of 100,000. Jacobson ended Day 1 in seventh place.

Then there was Phil Hellmuth. The “Poker Brat’s” distrust of Europeans was on full display on Wednesday. In one hand late in the evening, Hellmuth’s opponent moved all-in on a board reading 6-6-10-3-5. Hellmuth, who needed to commit his remaining chip stack in order to call, tanked and commented, “If you didn’t have an accent, I would’ve folded a long time ago.” Nice. He eventually laid it down and his opponent showed aces. Hellmuth ended Day 1 with 34,000.

One of the final eliminations of Day 1 went to former #1 ranked PocketFiver Calvin cal42688Anderson, who committed his chips with K-10 on a 10-high board, but ran into pocket queens. Anderson was at the same table as Jason treysfull21Mercier, who won three SCOOP titlesearlier this month. Like Anderson, Mercier was ousted on Day 1.

WSOP.com provided several updates on PocketFiver Jason JAKoon1985Koon (pictured). He fittingly sucked out on Maria Ho‘s pocket queens with pocket fives after flopping a set and then won a race with quads later in the day with pocket nines against K-Q. However, he failed to make it to Day 2.

Here are the top 10 chip stacks in the $5,000 NLHE event, according to WSOP.com:

1 Darryl Ronconi – 211,100
2 Ludovic ludovi333Geilich – 194,000
3 Joe ender555Ebanks – 187,000
4 Rong Li – 180,000
5 Tommaso Briotti – 178,800
6 Jeremiah Fitzpatrick – 174,700
7 Martin Jacobson – 173,800
8 Nick Rampone – 160,000
9 Sebastian Seba29072 Saffari – 143,500
10 Steve SteveyBallGame Merrifield – 141,700

Two events kick off on Thursday at the WSOP:

Event #3: $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo Eight or Better
Event #4: $3,000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout

And the Colossusstarts on Friday. The tournament, whose field could approach 20,000 entries, has a $565 buy-in and a $5 million guaranteed prize pool. If you’re going, here’s everything you need to know.

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