If you transported a grizzled grinder from the 1985 WSOP and plunked him/her into the monstrosity that is the $565 buy-in Colossus II there’s a chance they wouldn’t believe this is still a poker tournament.
When you get into the logistics of processing 6,500+ entries through three cavernous tournament rooms over two heats on the same day it all starts to get a little surreal.
It gets even wilder when you have the chance to observe 3,000+ players from each heat get whittled down to a couple hundred players and well into the money by the end of a day.
It’s like jamming 3-4 days of the Main Event into one turbo-charged experience. It’s a microcosm of the legendary tournament.
Today marked the debut of Days 1c and 1d of the Colossus II and it certainly didn’t disappoint with 6,869 entries spread over the two heats.
Of course there were 5,402 entries on Days 1a and 1b and we've still got Days 1e and 1f to think about. No doubt about it, the Colossus II will be massive.
A good portion of those entries today were likely playing the WSOP for the first time. The pros came out in droves too, however, with Allen Cunningham, Phil Laak, Melanie Weisner, Dutch Boyd and Faraz Jaka all taking a shot at what theoretically should be a fairly soft field.
Here's a series of photos documenting the action from the start of the day to the final level:
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