Updated on 23 Feb 26 by
Barry carter
Poker Expert

Doyle Brunson plays first Main Event in eight years

Day 1A was an eventful start to the $10,000 Main Event with a small field, a police lockdown and the 5th double bracelet winner of 2021.





How many runners will the Main Event get? That has been one of the most hotly debated gambling topic of 2021 and last night we got our first hint at an answer. 523 people played Day 1A of the $10,000 Main Event with 348 making it to Day 2. 

The nearest thing to compare it to was Day 1A in 2019, which attracted 1,335 entries. That would suggest those betting the under on a similar overall field size might have reason to celebrate, although the big difference this year is there are six starting days instead of three, so we will see a wider spread of entries. 

Mustapha Kanit is the Day 1A chip leader but the headline of the day goes to the return of Doyle Brunson to the Main Event. The 88-year-old has not played this event which he has won twice since 2013 and he goes into Day 2 as one of the bigger stacks with 151,000 chips. 


It was a remarkable day for lots of reasons, starting with defending champion Damian Salas being one of the first players eliminated, not long after he announced "Shuffle up and deal".

The Rio gets locked down

There was also real life drama as the Rio was locked down for two hours, with nobody allowed to enter or leave, after a 'suspicious item' was found inside a vehicle (insert your own Phil Hellmuth joke here). The poker action was unaffected during the police operation. 

Elsewhere at the series Kevin Gerhart won his second bracelet in two weeks. He took down the $1,500 PLO8 event for $186,789 two weeks after winning the $10,000 HORSE Championship for $361,124. He now has four bracelets overall and jumps into 2nd place in the Player of the Year rankings behind Jake Schwartz, and ahead of Anthony Zinno, Phil Hellmuth and Shaun Deeb. 

Gerhart is the 5th player to win two bracelets in 2021 alongside the aforementioned Zinno, Daniel Lazrus, Mark Herm and Martin Zamani. 

Who are you railing at the WSOP? Let us know in the comments:


Barry carter
Poker Expert

Barry Carter is the editor of PokerStrategy.com and the co-author of The Mental Game of Poker 1 & 2, Poker Satellite Strategy, PKO Poker Strategy, Endgame Poker Strategy, GTO Poker Simplified, Mystery Bounty Poker Strategy and Beyond GTO. In 2025, he won the Global Poker Awards for Best Book and Twitter Personality of the Year.