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Icons Hellmuth, Ivey seated together at WSOP’s Main Event

The random draw for seating assignments at the World Series of Poker spit out a beauty Tuesday night.

Phil Hellmuth made his customary late entrance to the Main Event, and the 14-time WSOP bracelet winner was flabbergasted when he arrived at Table No. 256 in the green section of the Pavilion Room and spotted Phil Ivey in seat No. 6.

The news of the two Phils being at the same table quickly spread throughout the Rio Convention Center and added a new level of excitement to the evening session of the $10,000 buy-in No-limit Texas Hold ’em World Championship.

Hellmuth unofficially was sitting on about 60,000 chips — double the starting stack — at the 10:30 p.m. break with one level of play remaining. Ivey, a 10-time bracelet winner, had a little over 15,000 after losing a pot before the break to Zarik Megerdichian, who is one of the overall chip leaders.

John Gorsuch of Woodbridge, Va., had the unofficial lead at the break with a little more than 200,000 chips.

“Sometimes reality’s stranger than fiction,” Hellmuth said. “If there would have been featured tables and ESPN was here, I would have been, ‘All right, something seems strange about this draw.’ ”

The Main Event officially drew 6,420 entrants, which is slightly down from the 6,683 runners in last year’s tournament. It is the 10th consecutive year that the event has drawn at least 6,300 participants.

After two straight days of slow registration, Day 1C drew 3,963 players and is the largest Main Event starting flight in the tournament’s 46-year history, surpassing last year’s Day 1C total of 3,768.

“You just can’t rain on this parade,” WSOP executive director Ty Stewart said in reference to Monday’s flooding at the Rio. “Two things are certain in poker: There’s 52 cards in a deck and 6,000-plus in the Main Event.”

The Main Event continues at noon today at the Rio, as the players from the first two starting flights return for Day 2A/2B. The 1C survivors resume play Thursday, and all the remaining players are brought together Friday for Day 3. The tournament runs through July 14, and the nine remaining players return Nov. 8 at the Rio’s Penn &Teller Theater for the final table.

The Main Event winner will receive $7.68 million, organizers announced late Tuesday.

This year’s event features a record 1,000 places being paid with a minimum cash of $15,000.

“I think we’ll see the effect of the 1,000 players being paid over time,” professional poker player and Las Vegas resident Daniel Negreanu said.

“More people that leave happy, that leave winners, more people that are going to come back to the city (and) spend money in hotels, casinos and in these tournaments. So, I think it’s one of those things we’ll have to look at three, five years down the road.”

Defending champion Martin Jacobson of Sweden opened the final starting flight with the “Shuffle up and deal” command after his championship banner was unveiled. Jacobson was one of several former Main Event winners in the Day 1C field and was eliminated during the fourth level of play, while 2013 champion Ryan Riess was near the leaders at the dinner break thanks to an early double-up.

Greg Merson, the 2012 Main Event winner, lost a big pot early and was eliminated during the third level of play when he ran his pocket kings into aces. Jerry Yang, the 2007 champ, also was eliminated before the dinner break.

Negreanu was unofficially near the 50,000 chip mark at 10 p.m., as many notable names dotted the top 100 of the leaderboard throughout the day. Day 1C also saw several celebrities in the field, including comedian Brad Garrett, NFL veteran Richard Seymour and “Breaking Bad” actor Aaron Paul.

Paul, who created a buzz with his presence last year when he watched a friend play the Main Event, bought in this year and was one of the early eliminations when he flopped a set of sevens and lost out to Keith Lehr’s club flush.

Contact reporter David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidSchoenLVRJ.

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