The official chip counts from the end of Day 1 have been released by the casino. Raj Patel, who won this event a year ago, leads the way with 192,000. A few of the big names near the top of the leaderboard are Barry Greenstein (156,200), Erick Lindgren (131,800), and Ted Forrest (99,725).

Here is the complete leaderboard:

1. Raj Patel - 192,000
2. Paul Snead - 182,775
3. Brock Parker - 180,475
4. Barry Greenstein - 156,200
5. Kevin Mason - 144,050
6. Erick Lindgren - 131,800
7. Kenny Chanthamala - 125,778
8. Robert Richardson - 107,425
9. Eugene Katchalov - 105,525
10. Ken Adams - 103,775
11. Emil Patel - 102,100
12. Dick Carson - 100,625
13. Ted Forrest - 99,725
14. Paul Spitzberg - 99,275
15. Matt Wolf - 98,200
16. John Sass - 97,200
17. Antonio Cavezza - 95,500
18. John Sandberg - 94,925
19. Samuel Hernandez - 92,250
20. Bob Courtney - 92,100
21. Erik Seidel - 91,700
22. Alex Kamberis - 91,375
23. Matthew Supinski - 89,975
24. Hoyt Corkins - 87,900
25. Nam Le - 87,600
26. Todd Rebello - 85,450
27. Attilo Bitondo - 85,000
28. David Lehman - 82,300
29. Pey Lee - 81,550
30. Michael Farris - 80,550
31. Matthew Ehrlich - 80,300
32. Men "The Master" Nguyen - 79,475
33. Steve Winstein - 79,425
34. Chris Dombrowski - 77,575
35. Adam Katz - 77,125
36. Rich Meli - 75,450
37. Bob Lauria - 74,200
38. Joe Sebok - 73,875
39. Mike Santoro - 72,000
40. Jesse Martin - 71,975
41. Daniel Woolson - 71,600
42. Alan Goehring - 71,175
43. Chris Reslock - 71,000
44. Dan Pelletier - 70,350
45. Ron Rhoads - 70,000
46. Alan Heimiller - 69,000
47. Vinny Napolitano - 69,000
48. James Petrillo - 67,525
49. Allen Bari - 67,450
50. Shane Schleger - 67,300
51. Chris McCormack - 67,000
52. Eddie Ting - 66,500
53. Svetlana Gromenkova - 65,550
54. Elmer Lynn - 65,250
55. Philip Consolo - 64,125
56. Patrick Reilly - 64,100
57. Jim Silva - 63,150
58. Soheil Shamseddin - 61,700
59. Young Phan - 61,550
60. Alex Bolotin - 61,050
61. Sean Burstein - 59,800
62. Jimmie Guinther - 59,175
63. Matt Giannetti - 58,900
64. James Kelley - 58,800
65. Kush Patel - 58,575
66. Brian Haveson - 58,500
67. Tom Penikas - 58,425
68. Vincent Procopio - 58,025
69. Joe Przybycien - 58,000
70. Bill Edler - 57,800
71. Matthew Crawley - 57,475
72. Kevin Lim - 56,625
73. Bart Hanson - 56,400
74. Chuck Kelley - 56,250
75. James Lee - 55,550
76. James Martin - 55,125
77. Joe Simmons - 54,225
78. Paul Darden - 54,150
79. Stephen Ladowsky - 54,000
80. Joseph Johanssy - 53,850
81. Jack D'Agostino - 53,575
82. Bill Spadea - 52,700
83. Greg Monaldi - 52,650
84. David Kopp - 52,175
85. Johnny Landreth - 52,025
86. Jonathan Lewis - 50,725
87. James Nelson - 50,550
88. David Stefanski - 50,075
89. David Dicken - 49,600
90. Zachary Schwartz - 49,400
91. Luke Vrabel - 48,300
92. Konstantinos Katikakis - 48,225
93. Eugene Fouksman - 48,200
94. Natale Kuey - 47,850

AVERAGE - 47,615

95. Micah Raskin - 47,525
96. Mike Vela - 47,400
97. Steve Buckner - 47,300
98. Jay Zimmet - 46,900
99. Mike Siwek - 46,425
100. Justin Pechie - 46,075
101. Mike Sica - 45,575
102. Amanda Johnson - 45,300
103. John Juanda - 45,275
104. Edward Sabat - 45,225
105. Joe Cutler - 44,525
106. Laurie Hilton - 43,750
107. Benny Bianco - 43,400
108. Jim Ahern - 43,275
109. Leonard Sheer - 42,425
110. Matt Brady - 41,850
111. Shankar Pillai - 41,325
112. Randy Spain - 41,325
113. Nenad Medic - 41,250
114. Benjamin Zamani - 40,975
115. Jason Suh - 40,400
116. Beth Shak - 38,400
117. Michael Martin - 37,800
118. Sirous Jamshidi - 37,200
119. John Malley - 36,950
120. Narendra Banwari - 36,825
121. Scott Blackman - 35,200
122. John Gordon - 35,050
123. Neil Webber - 34,750
124. Nick Vasiliadis - 34,000
125. Ylong Schwartz - 33,775
126. Joseph Martucci - 33,500
127. Nick Binger - 33,275
128. Paul Matteo - 33,150
129. Jacob Pigeon - 32,800
130. Mark Dickstein - 32,350
131. "Action" Bob Hwang - 32,150
132. Michael Omelchuk - 31,950
133. Tim West - 31,900
134. Bryan Trout - 31,450
135. Everett Carlton - 31,375
136. Farhad Sinaei - 31,200
137. Jeff Lavender - 31,100
138. Vinny Pahuja - 30,600
139. Kathy Liebert - 30,500
140. Itai Benosh - 30,475
141. David Harris - 30,425
142. Eddie Gravalese - 30,375
143. Chris Bell - 30,125
144. Walter Siggins - 30,000
145. Joe Tehan - 29,600
146. Mike Leah - 29,400
147. Steve Brecher - 29,025
148. Joanne Monteavaro - 28,775
149. Adam Lippert - 28,025
150. Richard Fohrenbach - 27,875
151. Clinton Cockburn - 27,800
152. Leonard Cortellino - 27,800
153. Gary Medeiros - 27,725
154. Clint Schafer - 27,525
155. Joanne Dorin - 27,325
156. Angela Raimondi - 27,225
157. Phil Bodey - 26,900
158. David Weisberger - 26,825
159. John Kranyak - 26,250
160. Frank Cieri - 26,075
161. Tim Maxwell - 26,075
162. Luis Coriano - 25,975
163. Nemat Ebeid-Ishak - 25,575
164. Jeff King - 25,425
165. Eugene Todd - 25,075
166. Kevin Lang - 24,925
167. Reuben Peters - 24,550
168. Steve Daniel - 24,475
169. Roberto Matic - 24,300
170. Bernard Letzinger - 23,725
171. Francis Cipriano - 23,625
172. Danny Wong - 22,475
173. Aditya Agarwal - 22,325
174. Will "The Thrill" Failla - 21,700
175. Garrett Beckman - 21,475
176. Joe DiMartino - 21,100
177. Ted Karidis - 21,000
178. Joey Brooks - 20,950
179. Eric Lynch - 20,650
180. Dan Hicks - 20,625
181. Ilya Trincher - 20,375
182. Edward Brogdon - 20,350
183. Kenna James - 20,225
184. John Spadavecchia - 19,900
185. Anthony Newman - 19,825
186. Gordon Eng - 19,750
187. Hevad "Rain" Khan - 19,450
188. Mark Zulkiewicz - 19,325
189. Shane LaBounty - 19,025
190. Ken Hoey - 18,750
191. Eracles Panayiotou - 18,750
192. Ronald Maset - 18,700
193. Lawrence Jacobs - 18,575
194. Matt Woodards - 18,525
195. Anthony Campagna - 16,975
196. Jaime Kaplan - 16,875
197. Phil Ivey - 16,400
198. Bill Gagnon - 16,375
199. Spiro Mitrokostas - 15,750
200. Bill Gazes - 15,075
201. John Niceforo - 15,000
202. Ben Drokin - 14,375
203. Michael Simpson - 13,525
204. Roland Israelashvili - 13,425
205. Adam Levy - 13,375
206. Dan Shak - 13,250
207. Victor Ramdin - 13,200
208. Tony Cousineau - 13,100
209. Derek Feldman - 12,150
210. Joseph Cappello - 12,100
211. Jesse Rockowitz - 11,125
212. J.C. Tran - 11,000
213. Jamie Rosen - 9,650
214. Frederick Hood - 8,875
215. Rob D'Agostino - 6,725
216. Andrew Barta - 6,225
217. Billy Pilossoph - 6,175
218. Arthur Azen - 5,000

Day 2 begins at 12:00 noon ET, and we will continue to provide full coverage, with chip counts, photos, and video interviews with Kimberly Lansing.

Raj Patel Begins his Title Defense Strong as the Day 1 Chip Leader

By Ryan Lucchesi

Action began on day 1 of the World Poker Tour Foxwoods Poker Classic at noon, and at the start of the day 338 players were registered to play, but quite a few of them were not in their seats. A large contingent of the field arrived late (it was not uncommon for some tables to start play five-handed), but by the end of the first level everyone had arrived and a field of 346 players was present and accounted for in their seats. This made the first-place prize $967,300, along with a $25,500 seat at the WPT Championship later this month.

The professionals present were spread out evenly amongst the field. No stacked tables emerged on the first day of this perennial stop on the WPT schedule, which gave the professionals time to stretch their wings against green opponents. The 30,000 starting stacks also ensured that a lot of post-flop poker would rule the day. More than half the field survived day 1, and 218 players will return for another five levels of poker tomorrow.

Reigning Card Player Player of the Year, David "The Dragon" Pham, was the first professional player to bust out of the tournament with just 20 minutes remaining in the first level. According to Michael Binger, Pham sat down and played nearly every hand, losing all but one. His final hand saw him short stacked with 2,500, and he moved it all in with A-10 against his opponent's A-J. The board didn't help him and he was out the door. Other early eliminations included Amnon Filippi, Noah Schwartz (who was coolered with pocket kings against pocket aces), Hasan Habib, Isaac Haxton, Tom "Durrrr" Dwan, Bernard Lee, Justin Bonomo, Lee Markholt (who is fresh off of his first WPT title victory at the World Poker Challenge), Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy, and T.J. Cloutier.

Nam Le took a much different path than the Dragon early in the day when he nearly doubled up during level one. Le limped under the gun for 200, and a few other players called before Steve Fiorentini raised from the button to 1,100. Le made the call and everyone else mucked. The flop came 10-high with two rags and Le checked. Fiorentini bet 2,000 and Le made the call. The turn card was another rag, Le checked, Fiorentini bet 5,000, and Le check-raised to 12,500. Fiorentini moved all in with pocket aces and Le immediately called with pocket tens for top set. The river card was a blank, and Le eliminated Fiorentini to jump to the top of the leader board. Le took advantage of this early victory and he was among the chip leaders all day. He finished the day with 87,600.

Le was joined at the top early by Brock Parker, who built a ridiculous stack of 165,000, when the average stack was just 33,376. Other big names rose to the top in the early going: Men "The Master" Nguyen built his stack up to 92,000, and Barry Greenstein built his stack to 105,000. Paul Snead (168,500) closed in on the chip lead as well late in the day, and he gained most of his chips in a monster hand:

The betting amounts were unknown on a board of 1087K, but Ryan "toetagu" Fair was all in and Jimmy Kohl made the call. Snead moved all in over the top and Kohl thought for a bit before deciding that he couldn't get away from the hand. All three players then anxiously turned over their hands:

Fair: 97
Kohl: 87
Snead: K10

The river was the 3 and Snead, who had both players covered, sent two opponents to the rail and grabbed a ton of chips.

The end of the night carried a business-as-usual tone into the final bell, which rang at 8:30 p.m. During the last part of the day, two big developments took place. One was quite loud; as Steve Buckner let out a flurry of celebration when he hit a heart flush on the river against an opponent's set of queens. Buckner started shouting, "Let me suck out one time! Let me suck out one time!" He then paraded past other tables, getting louder and louder, pumping his arms and kicking his legs to punctuate the cheer. The tournament came to a stop to watch his display, which lasted for a minute, and by the time it came to a close there was a mix of cheers and jeers from the other players in the room.

The second notable event of the evening involved the start of what could be a strong title defense by last year's winner. During the last half hour of the day, the 2007 Foxwoods Poker Classic champion, Raj Patel, chipped up in a major way and took the lead. He held 194,000 as time expired, and ended the day with 192,050. A few other professional were lost before the end of the night, but the majority of the field still remained. Among the fallen late in the day were Nick Schulman, David Williams, Sully Erna, Allen "Chainsaw" Kessler, John "The Razor" Phan, Alex Jacob, and Tuan Le.

Here is a list of all of the players who hold at least 100,000 heading into day 2:

1. Raj Patel: 192,000
2. Paul Snead: 182,775
3. Brock Parker: 180,475
4. Barry Greenstein: 156,200
5. Kevin Mason: 144,050
6. Erick Lindgren: 131,800
7. Kenny Chanthamala: 125,778
8. Robert T. Richardson: 107,425
9. Eugene Katchalov: 105,525
10. Ken Adams: 103,775
11. Emil Patel: 102,100
12. Dick Carson: 100,625

The remaining field of 218 will return tomorrow at noon, and then play another five levels to get one day closer to crowning a 2008 champion. We will see if Patel can further his run at back-to-back titles tomorrow. Check back here for all the action in live updates, chips counts, photos and videos.

It's going to be a while before we get the official Day 1 results from the casino, but we scanned the room at the end of the day for players with more than 100,000 in chips.

1. Raj Patel - 192,000
2. Paul Snead - 182,775
3. Brock Parker - 180,475
4. Barry Greenstein - 156,200
5. Kevin Mason - 144,050
6. Erick Lindgren - 131,800
7. Kenny Chanthamala - 125,778
8. Robert T. Richardson - 107,425
9. Eugene Katchalov - 105,525
10. Ken Adams - 103,775
11. Emil Patel - 102,100
12. Dick Carson - 100,625

A full list of chip counts will be available later tonight. Day 2 begins tomorrow at 12:00 noon ET.

The first day of play has come to a close. The official chips counts and a recap of day 1 action will be posted a little bit later. Day 2 begins tomorrow at noon EDT.

Paul Spitzberg and his opponent get it all in on the turn of a K-10-8-X board. Spitzberg shows K-Q, but his opponent has a temporary lead with K-8. The river is a Queen, and Spitzberg takes the pot with with a better two pair and now has just under 50,000.

Last year's champion Raj Patel has taken the chip lead. Patel now leads the tournament with 194,000.

There are 226 players remaining with only 30 minutes left in play.

Gavin Smith raises under the gun to 1,800, Chris Bell moves all in from early position for 9,500, and the button raises to 20,000. Gavin folds, and Bell shows AK. The button shows 1010, and it's a race situation.

The board comes K2265, and Chris Bell pairs his king on the flop to win the pot and double up to 21,375.

Steve Buckner continues to add chips to his stack, up from just 9,000 last level to now over 55,000. Not only is Buckner winning pots, but he is also getting paid cold hard cash to do so. In a three way pot with three clubs on the turn, Buckner moves all in after a series of bets and raises and one of the players in the pot mucks his cards after five minutes in the tank. He offers Buckner $100 cash to see his cards and Buckner complies, turning over two clubs for the flush. Buckner rakes anther pot and put a c-note in his pocket.

The players return from break to start the last level of the day, with increased blinds of 300-600, with a 75 ante.