It’s 4:30 am on a Tuesday morning, and the bracelet events at the World Series of Poker have all wrapped up for the night. The cleaning crews are wandering the Amazon Room, setting up for tomorrow’s events, and the rail has been cleared. But in one corner of the room, the clicking of chips shuffling lightly echoes through the room, as three players vie for a first place prize worth 100 times what they bought in for.

The 2 pm deep stack tournament, one of the many side game options going on around the 2011 WSOP,attracted massive fields during the first week of the WSOP. Peaking at 599, the tournament has attracted big fields every day except the first, promising a sizable first place prize for a minimal investment.

“A $235 tournament with 15,000 chips, its about a 12-hour tournament,” said WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel. “We’ve been getting over 500 players the last few days, and first place has been paying out over $25,000. That’s huge. For $235, you can literally win $25,ooo which would buy you into a handful of bracelet events. If you were to win any of those, that could change your life forever.”

And that tournament is just one of three daily deep stack tournaments. There are also tournaments at 6 pm and 10 pm, and all three tournaments combine to average over 1,000 players a day.

It’s just after 4 am now, fourteen hours since the tournament began. You could not get a more diverse final three if you tried. There’s a 49-year-old woman from Kentucky who works for an enforcement agency, a 23-year-old professional poker player from Canada, and a paralympic athlete from Las Vegas.

That’s part of what the WSOP is about, bringing in people from all over the world, from all walks of life, and letting them compete.

“As we’ve done every year,” said Effel, “We try to offer something for every player at every level. We try to have a nice variety.”

The deep stack tournaments are just one aspect of the other action at the WSOP. For those players that want to take the big shot at the Main Event or one of the World Championship events, the satellites have been made more accessible to the lower stakes grinders.

“For $550, our 8 pm mega satellite gives you the chance to win $10,000 towards any of our bracelet events,” said Effel.

This year some tweaks have been made to the multi-table tournaments to enhance the options and payouts. In addition to giving players the ability to re-enter if they bust out in the first two hours, more effort has been made to build up the fields of the Championship events.

“When we introduced the $10,000 World Championship events in all of the major disciplines of poker at the championship level, we haven’t really had a lot of big satellites for them, other than the single tables,” said Effel. “ This year, the night before these $10,000 events, we’re going to offer a mega satellite that night at 8 pm in that game. Last night, for example, the $550 mega for the Omaha Hi-Lo, we had 158 players and awarded 7 seats into the event, and that’s something that we’ve never really done.”

Back in the quiet corner of the Amazon room, Marlon Shirley can’t catch a break three-handed. He was ahead when they got to this point, and he had the unique perspective of having been there already, winning the tournament the first night it was held. The Las Vegas native has been playing these later events because the 12 pm bracelet events interfere with his training. The nationals are coming up on June 20, and the gold medal winning paralympic star will be able to take his shot at another kind of gold after they have wrapped up.

This was not his night, however, as he would bow out in third place. That would leave Libby Wilson of Kentucky, in town for the week from Kentucky to play a few tournaments, to face off against Danny Noseworthy, a 23-year-old poker player from St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada. They were competing for a first place prize of $25,809, with the runner-up enjoying a consolation prize of $15,962.

As they take their final break of the evening with the clock creeping towards 5 am, there’s still poker being played across the hall in the Pavilion room as well. The tournament action isn’t the only thing in full swing at the Rio.

“We currently have 77 live action tables in the Pavilion room, and 14 tables in the poker room up front,” said Effel. “We’ve been at capacity for several days since we opened, and its been so busy that we’re getting approval to add five additional tables. We’re going to end up with 96 tables of live action play between the Pavilion room and the poker room up front.”

And there’s an option for every level of player, no matter what game they play.

“We’re spreading games from $1/$3 NL, all the way up to a $1K/$2K PLO game, which durrrr has been playing, that’s been real exciting. The games have been great, and the action’s been even better. Whatever it is that you want to play, we have it for you at the WSOP. There’s really no reason to go anywhere else.”

With a big lead and huge blinds, Libby Wilson didn’t take long to end the tournament and take home the win. This is her largest cash to date, though not her first serious success, with four previous five-figure scores at events in Indiana. Her win of nearly $26,000 is certainly going to make it easier for her to play in a bracelet event while she’s out in Vegas.

“I always like to win my way into a tournament, whether it be by single table satellites or megas,” said Wilson. “This is going to make things a lot easier.”

As the chips are racked up and put away, there are just a few hours before the merry-go-round starts up again. It looks as if the WSOP has finally gotten things right, and they are reaping the benefits. The vision of Jack Effel and his staff has been realized, as the WSOP has become the destination for every kind of poker player out there.

“We have the tables, the dealers, the games, we have all the action, and everybody has come to Las Vegas for the greatest show on earth, the World Series of Poker,” said Effel. “Why would you want to play anywhere else?”

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