388 players turned out for the Omaha Hi/Low, Seven Card Stud Hi/Low event at the World Series of Poker, creating a prize pool of $892,400. The final 40 players will get paid and are guaranteed to earn at least $4,016. The winner will take home $232,911 and a shiny new bracelet. Day 2 action begins at 3 p.m. PDT Friday with 108 returning players.

Official chip counts for end of Day 1:

Recently departed: Mike 'the Mouth' Matusow, Barry Greenstein, John Juanda, Tony Cousineau, Chip Jett, Gavin Griffin, Jennifer Harman, Kristy Gazes, Van Marcus, and Max Pescatori.

Current chip leaders are Bennett Greenstein, (no relation) and Marco Johnson, who both have 41k.

128 players remain with about 24 minutes left to play tonight.

Day 2 action will commence at 3pm pacific time Friday.

After a 30 minute break, players returned to level 7 with 100 antes 200 bring-ins, and 500/1k limits for Stud; 300/500 blinds and 500/1k limits for Omaha. Two more levels to play before the night will end.

168 players remain. Average stack is just over 11,500.

Marco Johnson is the chip leader with ~40k.

Men 'the Master' Nguyen is giving Jack Strauss' "a chip and a chair" a run for his money. At one point earlier today, he was down to a single 25 chip. Now he has turned that into about 13k!

Craig Gray is leading the field with ~23k as the end of level 6 approaches.

Recent departures: ESPN's Norman Chad, and Paul 'Eskimo' Clark.

224 players remain...still a long way to go.

Josh Arieh has departed this event. He got all in against Michael 'the Grinder' Mizrachi and another player. At the river, Michael the other player split the pot and Josh just split.

Chris 'Jesus' Ferguson has also departed this event, as have Daniel Negreanu, Jon Friedberg, Bret Jungblut, Eric Crain, Barny Boatman and Marco Traniello.

In his usual quiet fashion, Barry Greenstein has eased into the lead with ~17k in chips.

Payouts, finally. 388 players generate a prize pool of $892,400. 40 will get paid, as follows:

Well, no sooner had I mentioned Miss Violette that she was out of today's event. Playing Omaha/8, she got her chips in with KK87 against AAT6. To add insult to injury, her opponent caught running Aces on the turn & river to make quads.

At the end of level 4 (about 9:28pm) players were sent on a 30-minute break.

312 players have suvived the first four hours of play.

Play resumed at about 9:57 with Level 5: 75 antes, 100 bring-in, 300/600 limits for Stud; 150/300 blinds and 300/600 limits for Omaha.

Level 4: 50 ante, 50 bring-in, 200/400 limits for Stud; 100/200 blinds and 200/400 limits for Omaha.

East-Coast Stud-Specialist Cyndy Violette is in today's event -- don't know how I could have missed that engaging smile earlier. Mark Gregorich and Chris Ferguson have also been uncovered lurking in the field (OK, Chris is a bit tall to lurk).

Shannon Elizabeth is no longer dancing...er...playing. Neither are JJ Hazan and Tony 'G' Guoga.

Registration has closed for this event and the final count is 388. 376 of those are still alive after more than two full levels, owing to the fact that they are playing limit poker rather than its wilder cousins Pot Limit and No Limit and also the fact that the games are split-pot games.

A recurring theme during the Stud/8 hands is starting with four great cards, then ending up with nothing but air. Just ask Allen 'Chainsaw' Kessler, who held A234 --suited-- on fourth street and was drawing to the steel-wheel, straight, flush,and nut-low, and ended up no low, no straight, no flush, not event a pair on 7th street.

These players started with 5k in chips and as far as I can tell, no one has yet crossed the 10k mark.

Greg Raymer recently lost his last chips over in event 8, the $10k Mixed Games, so he has turned up here in event 10. Greg recently lost a sizable pot to Jeff Shulman when his trip 8s went down to Jeff's trip Aces.

Phil Ivey has also made the trek across the room after departing the $10k Mixed Games event.

Scott Clements, who was at the final table of event 6, Omaha Hi/Low, finished in 9th place there just a few moments ago and has now joined this event.

Some other late arrivals have appeared and some I missed earlier: Tony 'G' Guoga, Kristy Gazes, the aformentioned Jeff Shulman, Gavin Griffin, Steve Zolotow, Jennifer Harman, Michael Binger, Bryan Devonshire, Kevin Saul, Joe Tehan, Allyn Shulman, Brandon Cantu, Brett 'gank' Jungblut, David 'the Dragon' Pham, Joe Bartholdi, Joe Cassidy, Josh Arieh, Max Pescatori, Berry Johnston, Jim McManus, Jon Turner, Michael Mizrachi, and 'Miami' John Cernuto.

Just two games to worry about here: Omaha and Stud, but both are played Hi/Low split, so that adds a level of complexity.

Players began with 5,000 chips and 25 antes, 25 bring-in, 75/150 limits for Stud and 50/75 blinds with 75/150 limits for Omaha. Tables are 8-handed and the game changes every 8 hands. Levels will last 60 minutes and they will play 8 levels today.

There was a flurry of bustages in the $10k Mixed Games event just before 5pm. Apparently the short-stacks over there decided that they would rather start over with just two games: Omaha/8 or better and Stud/8 or better. These folks have appeared in this event after busting out of event 8: Barry Greenstein, Noah Jefferson, Alexander Kravchenko, Brett Richey, and David Sklansky.

Also in this field today: Allen 'Chainsaw' Kessler, Perry Friedman, Mike 'the Mouth' Matusow, 'Eskimo' Clark, Hoyt Corkins, Daniel Negreanu, Chris Reslock, Andreas Krause, Shannon Elizabeth, Doug 'Rico' Carli, 'Captain' Tom Clark, Justin Bonomo, Rob Hollink, Jon Friedberg, Marco Traniello, Paul Darden, Young Phan, Melissa Hayden, David Chiu, Matt Graham, Weikai Chang, Barbara Enright, Tony Cousineau, Marsha Waggoner, Cliff 'Johnnybax' Josephy, Barney Boatman, Raymond Davis, Jeffrey Lisandro, David Levi, ESPN's Norman Chad, Thor Hansen, Jordan Rich, Davidson Matthew, Sabyl Cohen-Landrum, Men 'the Master' Nguyen, Michael Keiner, Roland de Wolfe, Chip Jett, Blair Rodman, Ed Brogdon, and Chris 'Armenian Expess' Grigorian.