Antonio Esfandiari Leads WPT Festa al Lago Into Day 2

WPT-sponsored poker pro Antonio Esfandiari is taking a monster chip lead into Day 2 of the WPT Festa al Lago. (Bodog Beat Image)"]

The WPT Festa al Lago wrapped up the second flight of Day 1 last night and ended up drawing in more players than was originally thought, based on the current economic woes and the increased buy-in for the event. Over the course of the past two days, 368 entrats divested themselves of the $15,000 buy-in to generate a prize pool of more than $5 million.

Even while the entrant number was higher than many had thought, it was down from 2006 when it pulled in 433. This year's total number does have the distinction of being up from last year's number of zero, as the event was not on the WPT Season Six schedule. However, among the players that did come out were some of the best that the poker world has to offer, with many of them surviving the carnage of the first two flights of Day 1 to head back to the Bellagio this afternoon.

Leading the way into Day 2 is WPT-sponsored poker pro Antonio Esfandiari, who has as commanding of a lead as we've seen this early in a major poker tournament. He holds a solid 129 big blind lead over second place, or just over 100k. Behind him and looking to somehow close the gap are Jenn Tilly, Andrew "good2cu" Robl, Nenad Medic, Joe Sebok, JC Alvarado, Vivek Rajkumar, Allen Cunningham, JC Tran, Mike Matusow, Erick Lindgren, Bodog poker pro Justin Bonomo and Daniel Negreanu.

The remaining 256 players return later today to battle it out for the $1,411,015 first-place price in order to become the next WPT-Made Millionaire.

Stay tuned for more WPT Festa al Lago updates from the Bodog Beat and don't forget that you can get started on your way to becoming a WPT millionaire for as little as a $1. Check out how to qualify online for the WPT and get one of the $12,000 Player's Choice packages on offer.