Bodog Beat

After Day 1 of the Bayou Poker Challenge WSOP Circuit event, David Fox leads the chase for the coveted WSOP Circuit ring. (Image from pokernightpodcast.blogspot.com)

Out of the 249 players that came out to play in Day 1 of the Bayou Poker Challenge WSOP Circuit championship event in New Orleans yesterday, there are now only 69 (hehe) remaining.

Many of the recognizable players who showed up were sent back out of the door fairly early, including poker pros T.J. Cloutier, Gavin Smith, Josh Arieh, Sabyl Cohen, Bill Edler, Steve Billirakis, Steve Dannenmann and Team Bodog's Ari "BodogAri" Engel. Like most of the major poker tournaments this year so far, amateurs dominate the leaderboard with just a few big names sprinkled in, like Johnathan "FieryJustice" Little and Allen Kessler.

The current co-chip leaders with exactly 102,100 are David Fox and WSOP Circuit fixture Lou Esposito. Esposito already has a WSOP Circuit ring to his name from this same event last year and is in great position to defend his title. He also has five other preliminary and championship event final tables under his belt and a decent cash here would put him over the $1 million mark for career earnings.

Here are the top 10 after Day 1, with chip counts:

1. David Fox – 102100
2. Lou Esposito – 102100
3. Mike Browne – 96000
4. Senovio Ramirez – 88900
5. Ed Jatho – 81600
6. Purvis Blake – 80600
7. Chuck Kelley – 80200
8. Timothy Miles – 78400
9. Marc Fratter – 75400
10. Matt Stout – 63900

Play resumes at Harrah's New Orleans in just about an hour and the field will play down to the final nine. Stay tuned for more updates from the Beat.

Don't forget that the 2008 WSOP kicks off in just over a week but the 2008 WSOP Main Event is not for another six weeks, so there is still plenty of time to qualify to be part of Team Bodog through the WSOP online poker satellites.

Charles Simmons writes poker tournament news for the Bodog Beat.