There were a lot of celebrities, but Shannon Elizabeth, Trishelle Cannatella as Sam Simon were all eliminated. The most surprising player who got eliminated was the professional online poker pro Phil Ivey. Ivey is one of the best poker online and heads-up players in the world, and in the WSOP in 2009, he battled through a field of 6,488 poker players to finish seventh on the final table. Ivey won’t be on the final table this year, he was eliminated on day 2b. Ivey played pocket queens against pocket kings, and even though he hit a queen on the turn, he was eliminated when his opponent made trip kings on the river.

In addition to Ivey, the professional online poker players Doyle Brunson and Chris Ferguson where also eliminated. The biggest controversy of the day happened when Prahlad Friedman was accused of making a call, just when the time on the call clock had expired. The dealer did not hear the call and threw them in the muck. Ted Bort was furious because he would have eliminated Friedman, if he had  called.

This year the Main Event will have four separate starting days and two separate 2nd days, where the remaining players from two of the four starting days are mixed on every second day. After the fiasco at last year’s WSOP, where poker online players on the last day of registration had no option but to leave by a lack of space,the WSOP changed the registration for the Main Event. Players can now register in advance for a specific start day, but if the day is full, they have to choose a different start day.

This will also contribute to a more balanced Day 2, which saw a clear difference in the number of players in comparence to the Main Event of last year. The wait is finally over, when the immortal words: “Shuffle up and deal” are spoken, the 2010 WSOP Main Event starts.

High Stakes Poker pro Phil Ivey seems to have climbed effortlessly to the second position of the top money winners on Full Tilt Poker in 2010, after he managed to win $ 579,000 on the site. Although Ivey has played less hours than many of his fellow poker pros at the virtual tables of Full Tilt Poker, he is very efficient with his play time whenever he is seen playing. He showed this in his effort last week when he won $ 579,000 with only 1474 hands, that landed him just behind Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan’s profit ranking. Phil Ivey constantly proved his reign in the high-stakes poker cash games over the years and his impressive $ 2,000,000 profit to date, shows his dominance in online poker, which yields him seven figures each year. Phil Ivey earned  $ 1,990,000 playing poker online at Full Tilt Poker in 2007, in 2008 $ 7,340,000 and $ 6,330,000 in 2009. Now with the 2010 WSOP in sight, the seven times bracelet winner Phil Ivey will certainly focus on obtaining more titles in the poker event. Ivey made a side-bet with fellow poker pro and business partner Howard Lederer for $ 5,000,000 that Ivey would not be able to add two more WSOP bracelets to his repertoire by the end of the 2011 season.