By
dhubermex
The 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event kicked off Thursday in Las Vegas, Nevada with over 70 PocketFives.com members vying for a commanding chip position at the end of Day 1A. The action began a few minutes after 2:00pm Central as players arrived at their respective tables and sat down to 20,000 tournament chips. Within moments, the action had settled into an upbeat rhythm with players displaying their poker skills in the world's premier poker tournament - the $10,000 No Limit Texas Holdem World Championship.
Soon after play had commenced, P5'ers had their first casualty, as online poker player Cody thugmoneymkr Slaubaugh was eliminated when his flopped straight was outdrawn by his opponent's 4-flush on the turn. As play continued, PocketFivesLive.com reporter AdamJ informed readers that Blake Balla-B13 Cahail (pictured right) was playing in a wizard's costume. Earlier in the Series, Blake lost a prop bet with fellow P5'er Blair Blur5f6 Hinkle, who won WSOP Event #23 ($2,000 NLHE) for over $500,000 -- less than two weeks after his brother, Grant drossxyu Hinkle had taken down WSOP Event #2 ($1,500 NLHE) for $831,000. Honoring his bet, Balla-B13 played out his entire Main Event dressed as Gandalf the Blue, and was sent to the rail before the dinner break.
Fan favorite Marco CrazyMarco Johnson (pictured left), who came in 2nd in WSOP Event #48 ($2,000 NLHE) for $491,000 after losing pocket aces to ace-ten, couldn't avoid another bad break when his ace-king was defeated by pocket aces early on in Day 1A. As the blind levels slowly increased, more players began moving all-in to risk their tournament lives for the sake of accumulating chips. Top 10 ranked online poker tournament players Chris moorman1 Moorman of the U.K. and Alex AJKHoosier1 Kamberis were both eliminated Thursday evening, along with Matt All In At 420 Stout, Corwin mig.com Mackey, Adam Akat11 Katz, Mike SowersUNCC Sowers and Taylor Green Plastic Caby -- among others.

Chip leaders among PocketFives.com members were Michael
DblupM0j Johnson and Jon
PearlJammer Turner (pictured right). Both players ended Day 1A with over 100k tournament chips. An impressive performance was also put in by Event #23 Champion Blair
Blur5f6 Hinkle, who has over 50,000 chips going into next week's Day 2. To date, PocketFives.com members have won nearly $16,000,000 and 8 WSOP bracelets; which already breaks last year's achievements. Today's action will begin at 2:00pm Central Time (GMT -6) with blinds of 50/100 and 20,000 in starting chips for each Day 1B participant. Day 1A attracted close to 1,300 players from around the world, but many believe tomorrow's field could be over 1,500. PocketFivesLive.com is your home for live
WSOP coverage during the 2008 Main Event. Players who would like to have their progress covered can
Register Here For Coverage.
OFFICIAL Day 1A Chip Counts
Jon "PearlJammer" Turner - 89,450
Jonathan “HoosierAlum” Depa - 73,000
Tim “Tmay420″ West - 71,050
Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken - 70,000
Joe “latestlines2″ Ward - Did not report but we think he’s around 70K
Jason “JasonGray” Gray - 69,400
Jamie “TheCronic420″ Rosen - 68,800
Faraz “The Toilet-0″ Jaka - 62,400
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 62,300
Steve “stevesbets” Jacobs - 60,925
Blair “blur5f6″ Hinkle - 58,275
Louis “MrBeeks” Werman - 57,400
Eric “jakz101″poker Crain - 49,850
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 48,925
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 47,750
Dan “ansky451″ Stern - 47,100
Brendan “moe86″ Mahoney - 44,425
Steve “McNallyville” McNally - 41,757
Aaron “aaronbeen” Been - 41,550
Joseph “JOEYTHEB” Brooks - 38,525
Zach “CrazyZachary” Clark - 37,850
Kevin “Kice32″ Iacofano - 37,525
Joshua “Squintngo” Goldstein - 36,600
Doug “Resilient” Smith - 35,800
Anna “pokerpixie” Wroblewski - 34,125
Noah “Exclusive” Boeken - 30,775
TJ “Doubles00ted” Slifka - 30,250
Kevin “ImaLuckSac” MacPhee - 29,450
Justin “looshle” Pechie - 27,550
Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach - 27,200
Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke - 24,650
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 23,775
Brock “t_soprano” Parker -21,700
Barry “barryg1″ Greenstein - 21,500
Jordan “iMsoLucky0″ Morgan - 18,800
Carter “notashark” Gill - 16,100
Andrew “fergwrx” Ferguson- 13,500
Jeff “yellowsub” Williams - 10,950
Rami “arbianight” Boukai - 10,850
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P5'ers EliminatedAnthony
D1rtyR1v3r Nardi -
OUT
Ken
isuck123 Goldin -
OUT
Andrew
MuddyWater Wiggins -
OUTMatt
All In At 420 Stout -
OUTAdam
Akat11 Katz -
OUTMarco
CrazyMarco Johnson -
OUTJonathan
FieryJustice Little -
OUTKevin
BeL0WaB0Ve Saul -
OUTBlake
Balla B-13 Cahail -
OUTEric
EFro Froehlich -
OUT
Alex
AJKHoosier1 Kamberis -
OUTCody
thugmoneymkr Slaubaugh -
OUTMike
michnak Michnik -
OUT
Tom
Durrrr Dwan -
OUTNick
fu_15 Maimone -
OUTCorwin
mig.com Mackey -
OUTBilly
billywestom Westom -
OUT
Joe
JoeSebok Sebok -
OUTZac
iLLNuGWichee Fronterhouse -
OUTJustin
jurollo Rollo -
OUT
Larry
larrygold Goldstein -
OUTKevin
WiCane Pionkowski -
OUTJoshua
pbdrunks VanDuyn -
OUTShawn
westtexasman Rice -
OUTTaylor
Green Plastic Caby -
OUT
Eric
p3achy_keen Liu -
OUT
Steven
CornellFiji Ware -
OUT
Mike
sowersUNCC Sowers -
OUTBo
Legato Sehlstedt -
OUTChris
moorman1 Moorman -
OUT* Register Here For Coverage* PocketFives.com Rankings* P5's Live Updates Thread