Just 271 players remain from a 2,142-player field with the bubble ready to pop at 270 players.
With a buy-in of $5,200 the $10m guarantee was topped with a $10,710,000 prize pool and a substantial $1.8m awaits the winner.
Viking8844, playing from Israel, has the current chip lead at 613,924 heading into Day 2 play and the final table later today.
Big-name pros still alive include Jake Cody, Alex "Kanu7" Millar, Naoya Kihara, Xuan Liu, Faraz Jaka, Mustapha Kanit and Viktor "Isildur1" Blom.
The live webcast of the final table will start later tonight at 05:30 UK time and can be watched right here on PokerListings.com. The current Top 10 in chips:
1. Viking8844 (Israel) 613,924 chips 2. pampa27 (Argentina) 610,340 3. AlexKP (Denmark) 576,763 4. Demonic16 (United Kingdom) 556,264 5. dickler1 (United Kingdom) 524,759 6. theNERDguy (Brazil) 487,609 7. drjovaside (Bosnia and Herzegovina) 472,155 8. daskalos20 (Cyprus) 453,059 9. neckbr4ke (Germany) 447,547 10. 444446 (Lebanon) 439,647
Volpe, Amundsgård, Vilmunen Claim Victory
While attention zeroed in on the Main Event this weekend several big names earned themselves more impressive titles for their collections.
Paul "paulgees81" Volpe claimed the third piece of the online poker Grand Slam by winning Event #62, $2,100 HORSE.
With a WCOOP title, SCOOP title and a Sunday Million win Volpe, who's also a WSOP bracelet winner, now only needs a TCOOP title to complete the Grand Slam.
Ola "Odd_Oddsen" Amundsgård, one of the best PLO players in the world, won his first COOP title over the weekend in Event 60, $1,050 Fixed Limit Hold'em (Six-Max).
Amundsgård made headlines last year when he challenged any Norwegian politician to a heads-up battle for $1m kronor to prove poker is a game of skill. Only one took him up on the challenge and was soundly beaten.
In Event 60 he topped an elite field of 186 and a final table that included Marco Johnson and Eugene Katchalov.
In the other marquee event over the weekend Finn Jani Vilmunen topped a star-studded field in $10,300 8-Game for his second career WCOOP bracelet.
The final table of six was stacked with WCOOP title holders including Matt Ashton, Andrey Zaichenko and Noah Boeken. Vilmunen earned 231,200 after a heads-up deal with Boeken.
Final-table results and payouts for all three events below; for full recaps check the PokerStars blog.
WCOOP-51: $10,300 8-Game [Re-Entry, High roller]
Entrants: 104 Prizepool:$1,040,000.00 Places paid: 18
1. Jani "kiiski" Vilmunen (Finland) $231,200.00* 2. Noah "Exclusive" Boeken (Netherlands) $221,200.00* 3. Andrey "Kroko-dill" Zaichenko (Russia) $135,200.00 4. Matthew "MUSTAFABET" Ashton (United Kingdom) 5. Rory "Mafews" Mathews (United Kingdom) $67,600.00 6. Alexey "LuckyGump" Makarov (Russia) $46,800.00 * denotes heads-up chop
WCOOP-60: $1,050 FL Hold'em [6-Max]
Entrants: 186 Prizepool:$186,000.00 Places paid: 24
1. Ola "Odd_Oddsen" Amundsgård (Norway) $44,640.00 2. MO G Kush (Canada) $30,783.00 3. archa811 (Latvia) $23,250.00 4. Marco "NoraFlum" Johnson (Mexico) $15,810.00 5. alex987 (Russia) $12,090.00 6. Eugene Katchalov (Ukraine) $8,370.00
WCOOP-63: $2,100 HORSE - $200K Guaranteed
Entrants: 173 Prize Pool: $346,000 Places Paid: 24
1. Paul "paulgees81" Volpe (Canada) $66,442.50* 2. nilsef (Germany) $62,442.50* 3. Crazy Elior (United Kingdom) $41,520.00 4. Fresh_oO_D (Germany) $29,410.00 5. üä-qaypö.wsx (Austria) $19,030.00 6. octane190 (Canada) $15,570.00 7. tRaMp$d0PrAy (Mexico) $12,110.00 8. Creatiff111 (Russia) $9,515.00 * denotes even heads-up chop
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