The big dance of the World Series of Poker Europe is underway, and over the weekend spectators saw both Day 1a and 1b fire off. All the heavies were seemingly there, aiming for the second ever WSOPE Main Event bracelet. Day 1a saw Phil Ivey, Mike Matusow, Freddy Deeb, Erik Seidel, Howard Lederer, Andy Bloch, Joe Hachem, Phil Hellmuth, and many others. In fact, any big name pro not spotted on the first day was almost certainly playing the second, including Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen, Phil Laak, Chris Ferguson, Doyle Brunson, Gus Hansen, Gavin Smith, Jennifer Tilly, David Ulliott, Allen Cunningham, David "Chino" Rheem, and the only player ever to win this thing, Annette "Annette_15" Obrestad.

The carnage of these two Day 1s was brutal: 362 players whittled down to 183. Many pros survived to play on though, including Roland de Wolfe, Marco Traniello, Brandon Adams, Scott Fischman, Ivan Demidov, Mike Matusow, Eric Sagstrom, Scott Montgomery, Andy Bloch, and PokerRoad's Daniel Negreanu, who not only survived Day 1b, but thrived during it. Negreanu finished his day first in chips with 154,000 and well on his way to another impressive deep run.

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