David Oppenheim was all smiles as Day 1 of Event #6 ($10,000 World Championship Seven-card Stud) wrapped up with him as the chip leader.

Poker players and fans who’ve come to know the game as a result of the TV boom would be shocked to hear that as recently as ten years ago Seven-card Stud was the game of the choice. Hold’em was played by only a small percentage of players.

So Event #6 ($10,000 World Championship Seven-card Stud) might not have had the supersized fields that have been dominating the early storylines of the 2009 World Series of Poker but what it lacked in quantity it made up for in quality. One hundred and forty-two of the biggest names in the game showed up for the first World Championship event of the year.

The leader at the at the end of Day 1 is David Oppenheim. As chips were being bagged up at the end of the night Oppenheim was in front with 97,000. Right behind him is Benjamin Lin with 96,000.

The slow structure and talented field combined to make eliminations a rarity in the early going. The first elimination came just before the group broke for dinner and through the first six one-hour levels only nine players had managed to dissipate their 30,000 starting stacks. Among those early casualties was Bill Chen and Tony G.

A total of 20 players were eliminated on Monday. Among them were Justin “BoostedJ” Smith, Allen Kessler, Barry Greenstein and Howard Lederer whose sister, Annie Duke, was the final player eliminated.

Day 2 begins at 2 pm PT and you can follow all the action via the Live Updates and Chip Counts.

WSOP Event #6 ($10,000 World Championship Seven-card Stud) Top 10 Chip Counts

1. David Oppenheim - 97,000       
2. Benjamin Lin - 96,000
3. John Cernuto - 91,600
4. Nick Frangos - 90,600
5. Barry Mullinax - 90,000   
6. Danny Robison - 84,300   
7. Toto Leonidas - 84,100
8. Matt Glantz - 78,300
9. Frank Kassela - 73,500
10. Steve Zolotow - 73,500

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