The Season Nine World Poker Tour Southern Poker Championship at the Beau Rivage, in Biloxi, Mississippi, kicked off yesterday with 214 registered players. That amount of players, coupled with a $10,000 buy-in, was enough to create a total prize pool for the event worth more than $2 million, as well as a top prize of nearly $600,000.

Interestingly, the $584,481 top prize is about $130,000 less than the amount Hoyt Corkins won when he took down this same event last year, despite that event actually attracting six less players in total. Unlike that year, which paid out the top 18 places, this year’s will pay out the top 27- which is the main reason for the lower top prize.

Some of the notable pros who entered this year’s Southern Poker Championship included defending champ Corkins, Jonathan Little, Dwyte Pilgrim, Joseph Cheong, Bill Edler, Scotty Nguyen, Nick Schulman and PokerRoad Radio legend Gavin Smith, who ended the day with the second largest chip stack in the field. The first largest- a.k.a the chip leader- was Robert Keller, who bagged nearly 180,000 in tournament chips late last night.

144 players remained by the end of Day 1 play in Biloxi, each now just three poker-filled days away from any poker player’s dream, a televised WPT final table.

For more information on the WPT Southern Poker Championship, check out live updates straight from the floor of the Beau Rivage at www.worldpokertour.com.