Team Bodog Survivors of Day 1A at the 2007 WSOP Europe

Jason Karka and Atanas Gueorguiev are sitting comfortably after Day 1A of the 2007 WSOP Europe Main Event and will return on Wednesday for Day 2. (Bodog Beat Image)

At the end of a long Day 1A of poker yesterday here at the 2007 WSOP Europe, two members of Team Bodog are left standing. American Jason Karka and Bulgarian Atanas Gueorguiev are both stacked at about $20,000 after four levels of play and will return on Wednesday to continue play for Day 2.

If starting the day at a table with former World Champion Greg Raymer and 2007 WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Lisandro wasn't bad enough, Karka quickly found out four hours into play that the empty chair being blinded off at his table belonged to Danish poker pro Gus Hansen. "The Great Dane" came into the tournament late (the rumor is that he had found a juicy $200/$400 PLO game online that he just couldn't leave), and Karka made him pay for his tardiness not long after he showed up by taking a monster pot from him.

Not making it out of Day 1A for Team Bodog were everyone's favorite "blinged-out" poker player Heather Wells and Bodog poker pro David Williams, both who had a run of bad cards that short-stacked them after dinner. Williams was put out of the tournament when his flopped two-pair was flat-called all the way down only to be rivered by an open-ended straight draw. Wells lost almost all of her stack when her over pair of pocket nines came up against a flopped low set. She never recovered and went out shortly thereafter.

Over at the Empire Casino, we found several of the biggest online players in the world at the tables for this event. Annette "Annette_15" Obrestad and Tom "durrrr" Dwan were sitting back to back at adjacent tables. Annette is a highly accomplished online tournament player and has just become old enough to play live poker in Europe. Tom is a high-stakes online cash game player who just became old enough to play live poker in the US. Both put on a clinic as they built up their stacks. Tom was seated at a table with Erick Lindgren and Vicky Couren, and Annette found herself across from Barry Greenstein. It was hard to tell who was intimidated by whom.

Team Bodog will be back again later today with four more runners in Day 1B of the 2007 WSOP Europe Main Event, so stay tuned for more live updates here at the Bodog Beat.