Former Champs Joe McKeehen and Greg Raymer Bust Out on Day 1d of the WSOP Main Event

The fourth opening flight of the flagship $10k “World Championship” of poker saw two of its former champions hit the rails early, neither Joe McKeehen nor Greg Raymer able to traverse the biggest starting field yet...

With 2550 players appearing for the 4th of six Main Event starting flights, that more than doubled the total field to date, and a packed Rio saw some big names take to the tables.

Greg Raymer was looking to recreate his success of 2004, a life-changing $5million victory securing the “Fossilman” a spot in the history books.

It was an early exit for Raymer yesterday, however, when he got the last of his chips in against Victor Peppe...

♠ ♣ ♥ ♦

Raymer: A♦ Q♣
Peppe: A♠ K♣

Flop: 6♥ 7♠ J♠
Turn: J♣
River: 3♥

Coincidentally, the man Raymer defeated for the title heads up seventeen years ago, David Williams, also failed to navigate his way through a turbulent day one.

Almost 2000 players did advance, though, with Maria Ho among them, fellow pros Kathy Liebert, Danielle “dmoongirl” Andersen and Kitty Kuo among them.

Jamie Kerstetter made it through too, though with a very short stack, and she will return for her day 2 on Wednesday along with the likes of Cliff Josephy and Matt Berkey, with Adedapo Ajayi leading the chip counts with 340,900.

There are still two starting flights to go, both added to accommodate the lifting of the travel ban, players from another 33 countries now allowed to enter the US. There would probably need to be more than 2000 players in each of those to approach the record number of 8,569 set two years ago.

Day 1d Top 10 chip counts