Day 1A of the Legends of Poker Tournament at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles started slowly on Saturday, as the Olympic games dominated the table talk and players took several breaks to check out the action. One-hundred sixty-one entrants registered on Saturday, combined with 212 that signed up on Sunday for day 1B. The combined 373 players will be vying for a prize pool of $1,091,428 for the first place finisher. Unfortunately, these numbers still fell short of last year’s impressive total of 485 players, representing a 25 percent reduction.

Although the field was a bit diminished from last year’s according to the numbers, many of the biggest names in the game decided to pony up the $10,000 entry fee to try their hand at winning the illustrious title. The defending champion Dan Harrington showed up for day 1A, as did  Erick Lindgren, David Pham, Men Nguyen, Lee Markholt, John Phan, Lee Watkinson, and Card Player Player of the Year front-runner Erik Seidel. Several of the top online professionals also showed up to try to make their mark on the live game, making for a very competitive field.

Day 1B also saw an influx of top flight poker pros. Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Michael Binger, Freddy Deeb, Kathy Liebert, Scott Clements, David Chiu, David Williams, Allen Cunningham, Barry Greenstein, and Daniel Negreanu are some of the names to note.  One marquee name didn’t make it through the day was Phil Ivey. A previous commitment was going to force Ivey to miss a few hours of the opening day, and as a result, Ivey felt he had to make some aggressive moves to avoid being blinded off. After open-shoving against a blind with 3-2, Ivey was called by KK and promptly bounced from the tournament.

Other notable names that couldn’t quite make it through day 1A or 1B of the star-studded tournament were Joe Sebok, Dutch Boyd, Justin Bonomo, Jennifer Tilly, Theo Tran, and Amir Vahedi, and Chris Ferguson, who was eliminate right on the precipice of day two.

Check back here at TexasHoldem.com for more updates on all of the subsequent action at the Legends of Poker Event, and poker news in general.