How serious do you have to be to be in this game? Well, apparently, you have to be ruthless enough to check-raise your own Grandma. Roving Reporter Ed Ramshaw spotted this ruthlessness at ElkY's table. I later learned, the man behind the poker aggression was Doctorin2010, a PokerStars qualifier who had done well enough for himself today to go into Day 2 with a much better than average stack. Right now we're estimating, but it looks like Chad Brown will head into Day 2 with the chip lead--looking to be around 150,000.

Indeed, that shirt reads "I would check-raise my own Grandma"

We're at the tail-end of today's action with approximately 180 players left in the field. It was a day that saw heavyweights like Joe Hachem, Phil Ivey, and Marcel Luske fall. And it was a day that saw players like Patrik Atonius and Chad Brown skyrocket to big leads. We'll have a full official chip count when it's provided to us by the tournament staff. In the meantime, here's some late action from Ed.

The Ed Report

Facing a 1500 raise PokerStars qualifier rkruok called and then saw the SB push in for 4750 total. The original raiser folded and rkruok made the call. AJ for the SB against 66. The board was all single digit cards and rkruok eliminates a player and moves up to just under 30K.

Mel Judah has been eliminated when the money was all in preflop AK vs QQ and his hand did not improve.

Andy Black is continuing to add to his already impressive stack despite a tough table including Vicky Coren, Erica Schoenberg and French PS qualifier dlopt who just missed out on the FT in Barcelona this year. An early limper to Vicky Coren’s BB was also called by Andy and Vicky checked her option. The flop was 9d-6h-7d and the initial limper bet 1500. Andy raised to about 11K enough to put either player all in. Both folded and The WSOP final tablist now sits on around 60K. Vicky is looking perilously short and the crossword is losing its chances of completion.

Bill Chen raises to 1500 and gets 2 caller. Flop is Ad-3d-7s and Bill fires 2500 into the pot and gets a called. Both check the 2c on the turn and the river is 8d. The other player bets 4K and Bill folds. As the pot is being scooped he is shown a 5h. Bill is back down to 14K.

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And so, we end it tonight and plan for a 2pm start tomorrow. It looks like we'll have around 350 players going into Day 2, just about half the 706 that started. If you missed today's action, check out:

Big Guns Prepare for Battle
Champions in Monte Carlo
Champions Fall (Hachem and Ivey eliminated)
Faces in the crowd
Enormous first prize
Hellmuth's Hell and Stoddard's Eye
Gus Hansen's Tall Tale (and exit)
EPT Monte Carlo Payouts
Back in Action