For those who rue the all-in preflop shoves so much more common in the modern game than back in the day, pot-limit hold'em brings a happy medium of big bets with postflop play. Day 1 of Event #8: $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em kicked off on Monday at noon, drawing 639 entrants to create a prize pool of $862,650.

Michael Rocco finished with the top stack among 108 survivors with 123,300. Rocco has earned nearly $700,000 playing live tournaments to date but is still seeking his first major win. Some of the players standing in his way include Antonio Esfandiari (94,600), Oleksii Khoroshenin (80,700), Jonathan Duhamel (78,900), Ashton Griffin (66,100), Jesse Sylvia (59,300), Tom Marchese (50,100), Joe Cada (48,200), and Andrey Zaichenko (46,500).

Eliminated players included Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi, Ryan Riess, David "Doc" Sands, Joseph Cheong, and Mike "The Mouth" Matusow.

Play resumes at 1 p.m. local time with blinds of 600/1,200.