Poker, like many aspects of life, takes a combination of skill, timing, and luck.  Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar put the three together a little over a week ago to win the World Poker Tour event at the Borgata and take the top prize of $1.4 million.  Today’s World Series of Poker Europe Main Event field is full of players trying to work the same magic as Vivek had going across the ocean in Atlantic City.

Rajkumar himself is back at the tables, hoping to parlay his hot streak into another huge score.  The large buyin here (equivalent to $20,000) has brought out the heavy hitters from the live and online poker worlds, but satellites have also put some lesser known faces into the crowd.

With today being the larger of the two starting days (final numbers still coming as late registration is being held open for a while longer) the players are even more spread out around the casino with random tables put about anywhere a few square feet of open space can be found.  There has been some frustration from the last minute arrivals trying to scurry to their tables to get in the action without missing many hands.  The tables are numbered in a fashion that must make sense to someone, but who that person is nobody seems to know.  The order goes something like this: 7-2-13-3-9-6 for one area and 1-21-7-4-18 for another and on and on.  With the help of floor staff the players have mostly found their seats though and the tables went from being half full to pretty much being filled.

Now that all the seats are taken it will be up to the players to start emptying them back out.  The action seems a little slower in the early going today than yesterday, but with only an hour of play as a sample size it is too early to pass judgment.  Alex “AJKHoosier1″ Kamberis avoided an all in by folding the nut straight on a board that put three diamonds out on the river making a flush possible.

Stephen “stevie4444″ Chidwick is one of the players off to a good start.  He is off in one of the corner tables located by itself and not getting much attention.  Chidwick has accumulated some chips early on, looking to have around 30k in front of him.  Also at his table is Jason “JCarver” Somerville.

• September 28, 2008 -- Feature Table, Queen’s Kings Overthrown
• September 28, 2008 -- Win With The Queen High
• September 28, 2008 -- Early BustOuts
• September 28, 2008 -- Bag Em Up, Day 1B Complete

Isaac “Mr. Menlo” Baron just picked up a nice pot and is now over 100k. On a board of K876 Isaac bet 6,500 and one of the two other players in the hand called (The player that folded tossed K-J, but nobody involved in the hand saw his cards). With the K on the river Isaac checked and his opponent made a very small bet of 3k. Isaac raised to 18k and the player quickly folded. After taking the pot Isaac is now up to 110k.

Here are how some other players around the room stack up:
Barry “barryg1″ Greenstein - 110k (right)
Isaac “Mr. Menlo” Baron - 110k
Matt “Mattg1983″ Graham - 87k
Peter “Nordberg” Feldman - 85k
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson - 80k
Josh “pbdrunks” VanDuyn - 80k
Shane “Shaniac” Schleger - 70k
Matt “All In At 420″ Stout - 65k
Amit “Amak316″ Makhija - 64k
Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar - 49k
Jordan “iMsoLucky0″ Morgan - 47k
Matt “Plattsburgh” Vengrin - 45k
Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby - 44k
Marh Newhouse - 40k
Alvin “alsmooth” Zeidenfeld - 40k
Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter - 26k
Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg - 17k
Bryan Devonshire - 16k
Louis “MrBeeks” Werman - 6,500

Jason “JCarver” Somerfield was all in with his short stack not long after break and was eliminated. Alec Torelli also seems to be missing from the tournament tables.

• August 26, 2008 -- Stout Survives Day 2, Play Complete For The Night
• August 26, 2008 -- 90 Left
• August 25, 2008 -- First Level Action
• August 23, 2008 -- Marco Chips Up Early

For every player that gains chips and builds a stack there is another player that those chips had to come from. During the second level of the day both Alvin “alsmooth” Zeidenfeld and Jason “JCarver” Somerfield were on the giving out end. Somerfield saw his stack drop all the way down to 12k, but he is still confident he can make a comeback.

Jason (right) lost a huge pot with the nut flush draw against David Chiu who had an open ended straight draw and a smaller flush draw than Somerville. Chiu hit one of his outs to make a straight and Somerfield missed all his flush outs to lose a large pot.

Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg had another tough level and is still hanging on with 8k, but the player to his immediate right ran a 10k stack up considerable in the last level. Peter “Nordberg” Feldman won a flurry of hands to build up a stack well over the average of 60k. In one pot Feldman opened from under the gun for 1,600 and a total of 5 players went to the flop of AT8 and Nordberg bet 5k. One player called and Peter again led out on the 9 turn for 8k. He was again called.

With the 6 river card Feldman (left) said “all in” and the other player went into the tank. Feldman had about 35k left when he went all in and had the other players 17,800 chips easily covered. After wrapping up his iPod and packing his belongings he sat back down and continued to consider the call. Finally another player called the clock and the floorman came over to give the minute countdown. After another 30 seconds of thought the player called and Feldman showed the QJ for a straight.

Another Peter saw his tournament come to an end during the last level. Peter “#1Pen” Neff never really got anything going and was ultimately eliminated when his AK lost a race to pocket tens. Ari Engel also looks to have been eliminated during the second level of day 2 play.

• August 25, 2008 -- First Level Action
• August 24, 2008 -- Legends Of Poker Day 1A Complete
• April 19, 2008 -- Early Action, Big Pots and Basketball
• August 25, 2008 -- Stacking Up

The players are putting their chips in the bags and heading for the doors as play for day 1A is complete. The chip leader at the end of day 1 looks to be Adam Weinraub with 150k. Weinraub won the WPT Celebrity Invitational in 2007 and has played a few WPT events on the West Coast since then. He will be going into day 2 with a healthy stack, though tomorrow’s larger starting field (expected) is likely to turn out a few larger stacks Weinraub will almost surely be among the top few chip stacks going into day 2 play.

Alvin “alsmooth” Zeidenfeld spent some time as the chip leader throughout the day, and finished up strong with 92,000. His stack should put him in the top 5 chip counts for the day and in solid position for day 2 play on Monday.

Full chip counts for Day 1A will be available later tonight or in the morning but for now here are some counts we were able to grab at the end of the day:

Alvin “alsmooth” Zeidenfeld - 92,000
Jason “JCarver” Somerville - 73,600
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson - 68,625
Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter (right) - 55,300
Matt “All In At 420″ Stout - 51,850
Louis “Mr Beeks” Werman - 45,450
Matt “Plattsburgh” Vengrin - 29,775
Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg - 16,650
Amit “Amak316″ Makhija - 11,350

• August 23, 2008 -- Around The Room
• August 25, 2008 -- Wrong Direction
• August 24, 2008 -- Winding Down
• August 23, 2008 -- Baron Back, Baker Baked

Day 1A play at the Legends of Poker is winding down. The players have about half an hour left before they will be done for the night. Players from todays flight get tomorrow off while the day 2B group take to the tables and the field will then be combined with all surviving players coming back on Monday.

Jason “JCarver” Somerville jumped up to 70k chips early and has been hanging around that mark for the last few levels. He recently grabbed a few chips from Miami John Cernuto on a board of QQT6A. Jason led at the river for 6,500 and Cernuto folded, saying later he had a queen while Sommerville claimed a straight and flush draw that got there on the river. “I’m just glad he didn’t shove the river” Sommerville said after the hand, saying he would have had to reluctantly fold.

Sommerville wasn’t the only player to get out of the gates quickly only to see progress stall. Louis “Mr Beeks” Werman (left) finished the first level with 50k and is right at the same amount as play winds down for the night. Both he and Sommerville are more than happy to finish the day with solid stacks though.

Different players have different goals for day 1 play. Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar mentioned he was just below the starting stack, and when jokingly asked if that was the goal for day 1 he replied that the trick is to lose half your starting stack and then get most of it back right near the end of the day so you feel like you are on a rush going into day 2.

Other chip counts:
Alvin “alsmooth” Zeidenfeld - 95k
Scott “r_a_y” Montgomery (right) - 75k
Jason “JCarver” Somerville - 68k
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson - 58k
Louis “MrBeeks” Werman - 50k
Tim “Tmay420″ West - 42k
Matt “All In At 420″ Stout - 39k
Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter - 38k
Alec Torelli - 33k
Isaac “mr menlo” Baron - 30k
Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar - 28k
Jason Gray - 24k
Matt “Plattsburgh” Vengrin - 24k
Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg - 18k
Bryan Devonshire - 18k
Amit “Amak316″ Makhija - 16k

• September 27, 2008 -- All Day For A Quarter, Day 1A Complete
• August 24, 2008 -- Legends Of Poker Day 1A Complete
• August 23, 2008 -- Baron Back, Baker Baked
• August 23, 2008 -- Around The Room