March 27 2011, Donnie Peters

Day 1 of the 2010-2011 World Series of Poker Circuit $10,000 Regional Championship – Rincon took place on Sunday. A field of 91 entrants came out to play and after eight levels, about 60 of them remained. Leading the way is Ali Eslami with 128,500 in chips.

Even though the field was a small one, there was plenty of talent packed into the tournament room on the second floor of Harrah’s Rincon. Former WSOP Main Event champions Carlos Mortensen, Jerry Yang and Phil Hellmuth were all in action, but Hellmuth showed up late as usual. He battled some food poisoning for the first part of the day before finally making his way down to the tournament area at the start of the second to last level. Along with them, Shannon Shorr, Matt Waxman, Adam Levy and Kathy Liebert were in the field.

Waxman, who won the WSOP Circuit Main Event at Caesars in Atlantic City, was eliminated at the hands of Anthony Brown. From under the gun, Waxman raised to 625. Action folded all the way around to Brown in the big blind and he made the call to see the flop. Brown checked and Waxman bet 700. Brown made the call. The turn was the and Brown checked again. Waxman bet 1,400 this time and Brown made another call.

The completed the board on the river and Brown checked. Waxman took a moment, looked back at his hand and then moved all in a moment later for 6,425. Brown tanked for a minute or two himself, and then made the call. When he called, Waxman spun his hand into the muck. Brown showed the and won the pot. He was up to 67,000 while Waxman hit the exit.

Full Tilt Poker was also fairly well represented in the field. Justin Smith, Joseph Cheong, Jordan Morgan and Eric Froehlich were a few of the Red Pros who showed up to play while Team Full Tilt member Erik Seidel was also in the mix.

Cheong, who made the 2010 WSOP Main Event final table as a famed member of the November Nine, didn’t make it through the day. In Level 7, Cheong had the last of his money in preflop with two nines. He was up against the pocket tens of Dylan Wilkerson. The board ran out to send Cheong out the door.

Registration is still open throughout the night and into Monday. Players will be able to register through Level 9 of this Regional Championship event, which means one level of play on Monday’s Day 2. That should add a few more late arrivals to the list and allow the field to creep towards the 100-player mark.

Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for all the live coverage of the event straight from the floor as only our Live Reporting Team can bring it to you.

In the meantime, you should follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook to keep up with news from all around the poker world!