When paired with the massive day 1A field the two day total for the  poker event was somewhat jaw-dropping.  846 players sat down to play on day 1b and 669 on day 1a making the total a little over 1500.  This  was a significant jump from last years total.  For the boys it also felt a little bit like a ladies night.

Recently, a few men have invoked the ire of women by insisting on registering and winning women’s only events in the United States.  It appears the women aren’t going to take it anymore.  Young Nordic online poker legend Anette Obrestad and it girl of the moment of poker Vanessa Ruosso are leading the ladies charge.  Obrestad sits in between up and comers Matt Graham and Darryll Fish.  You might remember Fish from our profile of him here.  We warned you there would be more to come with this kid and the PCA is just his latest major tournament chip accumulating moment.

At the WPT Doyle Brunson Diamond World Poker Classic, Fish couldn’t carry his early big chip stack into a title but he hopes to change things at the PCA.  The guy in first is Matt Graham, another young up and comer in his own right.  Graham, originally from New Orleans, has won World Series bracelets in each of the last two years, and interestingly enough roomed with Fish in Vegas and backed the kid in some of his online successes. 

Now, the find themselves separated only by Obrestad on the Day 1B leaderboard.  Graham trails day 1A leader Wayne Bentley by a lot but Kevin Saul is the only other player above him. 

The top 10 in chips for 1B are as follows:

Matt Graham — 146,700
Annette Obrestad — 124,900
Darryll Fish — 120,000
Paul Wasicka — 116,300
Phil Ivey — 115,700
Shane Schleger — 110,000
Robert Mizrachi — 105,000
Chad Batista — 100,000
Glen Chorny — 92,000
Vanessa Rousso — 82,200

This top ten is arguably more star studded than Day 1A.  Poker blogger Shane Schleger is in the mix with 110k and just below Phil Ivey.  Phil Ivey, you might have heard of he recently final tabled the Main Event at the World Series of Poker, and was the player of the decade according to Bet & Win Poker.  If this was final table you’d get a compelling dramatic mixture of live and online players. 

Chad Batista recently made headlines by shoving over the top of John Juanda with pocket twos at the Five Diamond Doyle Brunson WPT Poker Classic.  Course Batista didn’t know that Juanda had gone all in because he was wearing headphones and didn’t hear the verbal declaration of see Juanda’s cards (concealed by his hands).  Scotty Nguyen in a controversial maneuver recognized “Lil Hold’em’s” mistake and shove from the Blind with pocket aces.  Obviously, the error hasn’t effected Batista that much as he’s back to chip stacking in the Bahamas.

Vanessa Rousso made it into the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue in an online poker site’s advertisement with pictures taken at the Bahamas last year.  Clearly, this year she’s not just wearing a swimsuit or enjoying the beach.  Rousso, like Obrestad is in the thick of things representing for all of womandom.  Her 10th in chips position gives her a great shot to make a run even higher on the leader board.

 It looks like the prize pool will be large enough that the winner may take home over 3 million dollars.  This is putting the PCA in the realm of World Series of Poker Main Event pay outs.  A guy who knows a bit about getting close to one fo the biggest purses in history but not quite close enough was Paul Wasicka who won the biggest second place prize ever when he was nipped by Jaime Gold a few years back.    His stellar day 1B has him right where he wants to be as he chasing another huge prize.