WSOP Main Event: 6,683 runners including Tom ‘Durrrrr’ Dwan

Final numbers for the Main Event of 2014 World Series of Poker are in and expectations were mostly met. After somewhat discouraging start of only 771 runners for the Day 1A and much better Day 1B, which saw 2,144 players put up their $10k buyin, the last of the three starting days turned out to be a real monster, becoming the largest starting day in history of the Main Event.

Even as the play was still underway yesterday, there were rumors that number of players registered for the Day 1C was bigger than the other two days combined. After the registration was over tonight, that number grew to exactly 3,768, making the final starting field 6,683. The number of participants in the 2013 Main Event was 6,352 and this is the first time since 2010 that the event had greater number of players than the previous one. This upward trend is certainly welcome news for all poker players and fans alike, once again proving that poker is not only alive and well, but also still growing.

In other curiosities, Tom ‘durrrrr’ Dwan showed up out of the blue. He decided to late register for the Main Event and let people know on his Twitter that he was in the mix. If we were to guess what tournaments Tom was going to play this year, the Main Event would probably not be the first guess, but at least he showed up. Phil Hellmuth also waited for the last moment to register and since there was no information coming from him throughout the day, there was a possibility of unthinkable happening – ‘Poker Brat’ skipping the Main. The unthinkable, of course, did not happen and he has now taken his seat.

Gus Hansen reentered the Rio as well. He’s been postponing his first tournament of the summer for a long time, then played in the $50k Players Championship, only to once again disappear until tonight. The other usual suspects who took their seats on the final starting day include Sam Trickett, who saw an early exit, Daniel Negreanu, former champion Greg ‘Fossilman’ Raymer, who left for the rail shortly after the dinner break, Phil Ivey, 2005 champ Joe Hachem and many others.

It was Negreanu who announced the start of play today, after he received his honors as 2013 WSOP Player of the Year, which included the buyin for the Main Event. Daniel is currently occupying fourth place in the PoY race, while Brandon Shack-Harris is the one to catch as he holds the lead.

Now it is official, 6,682 players will have to visit the rail before the 2014 Poker Champion is crowned in November. Whoever that person is, he or she will walk away with the first prize of $10,000,000 as guaranteed by the WSOP this year. The runner up will walk away with $5,146,000, which is exactly the huge pay jump Dominik Nitsche discussed in his interview for PokerTube.

Survivors from the first two days will be coming back to play later today, while those make it through today will be taking their seats tomorrow (Wednesday). The race is on!