In the first day of one of the most interesting events on the poker tour 11 of the 17 shooting stars had fallen and were left kicking their feet at the rail. Only Daniel Negreanu, Greg Mueller, Steve Brecher, Mike Matusow, Freddy Deeb and Yevgeniy Timoshenko will be competing in Day 2 alongside 47 other players.

Vanna Tea picked up the $10,000 chip leader award finishing the day with 143,900 slightly ahead of table mate Greg Mueller who finished on 132,800. On a particularly hard table featuring Tom Dwan, Scott Montgomery and Chrstina Lindley Tea was able to not only survive but dominat and watched on as Dwan was sent packing.

Other shooting stars to have left the tournament after the first day include: Gus Hansen, T J Cloutier, Kathy Liebert, Eric Baldwon and Jennifer Harman. A short stacked Chris “Jesus” Ferguson was the last to leave as he saw his 66s defeated on the river by the board hitting its own two pair leaving Phat Nguyen to win the pot with his king kicker.

Day 1b has finished with 16 shooting stars eliminated; their legacy an autographed t-shirt and $5,000 to the lucky eliminator. Amongst those to go were NBC Heads Up Champ Annie Duke, Todd Brunson, Allen Cunningham, Antonio Esfandiari, Joe Hachem, Eric Seidel and David Williams.

Eugene Katchalov finished day 1b as the chip leader and took home a very welcome bonus of $10,000.

All the surviving players from Days 1a and 1b will now compete today in Day 2 to position themselves for the end game. With lots of bounties still available the action is likely to be red hot.