Day 2a of the 2010 World Series of Poker, continued the long task of taking a total field of 7,319 players and somehow whittling it down to a lean final nine.  The day- the first of two Day Twos- began with 2,412 of those players sitting down to compete, and ended with around 1,100 being sent packing, with only memories and bad beat stories to show for their $10,000 investments.

Many notable players were among that eliminated group including WSOP Hall of Famer Mike Sexton, Antonio Esfandiari, James Akenhead, Ted Lawson, Dutch Boyd, Haralabos Voulgaris, Liz Lieu, “Hollywood” Dave Stann, Tom McEvoy, Greg “FBT” Mueller, David “The Dragon” Pham, Berry Johnston, Ted Forrest, Steve O’Dwyer, Garry Gates, Playboy model Sarah Jean Underwood, Dennis Phillips, Eli Elezra, Daniel Alaei, Carlos Mortensen and sadly even PokerRoad Radio’s Bryan “Devo” Devonshire, whose final hand of Ace-Queen just couldn’t get past his opponents pocket treys. 

In that respect, it was a bit of a depressing day, however for every player that saw their WSOP Main Event dreams come to an end yesterday, some other player had the thrill of making it to Day 3 including such big names as Daniel Negreanu (27,900), Erik Seidel (32,300), Scott Seiver (51,200), Theo Tran (59,000), David Williams (65,700), Evelyn Ng (99,300), Chris Moneymaker (104,000), Hasan Habib (116,200), Hoyt Corkins (122,400), Bart Hanson (122,700), Steve Sung (147,200), defending champ Joe Cada (122,400), and Devo's good friend and PokerRoad Radio partner, Court “The Hick” Harrington, who according to his Twitter page (@CourtHarrington) ended the day with 47,400 and a pretty good reason to cancel his flight home. 

Court’s stack is definitely enough to stop him from heading back early to his beloved South, but it’s also a far cry from the chip leaders like Dragan Galic (263,600), Johnny Chan (281,600), Jesper Hougaard (316,200) and Boulos Estafanous (340,100), who spent Day 2a pulling so far ahead of the majority of the players they’ve effectively forced Court, Negreanu, and many of the others, into poker’s version of a “chase pack,” for possibly much of the rest of the event.

Of course poker is full of stories of players who have come back from much less, and certainly many of these shorter stacked players are eager to prove they have the heart for an extended uphill battle, but before they can prove that, they must first step aside, as today (7/10) is reserved for the Day 2b group, and rest assured they’re almost certainly just as eager to show their stuff as well.

For more information on Day 2a of the 2010 WSOP Main Event, or to read live updates as they happen- powered by PokerNews- from Day 2b, visit www.wsop.com.