There was more than one Team PokerStars Pro going for a bracelet today, but while the likes of Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Vanessa Selbst and Aditya Agarwal knew they needed to beat about 6,500 people to win the Main Event, Yaxi Zhu needed to outlast only eight more.

Zhu, the Chinese player who joined the ranks of the Red Spade last September, was at the final table of the Ladies Event with a first prize of close to $150,000 in her sights. Although it didn't go in her favour today--she lost her 18 big blind stack within 20 minutes of play resuming--her ninth place was a pretty decent result for someone on their first trip to this venue.

"Everything has been going pretty well," Zhu said this morning, scurrying to her seat on the tournament stage. "This is the fourth event I've played, but this is my first time in Vegas, so it's really good [to be at the final table]."

It's something Selbst didn't manage this time. She was one of Zhu's many victims on her run to today's competition. "She's my team-mate," Zhu said. "I hope everyone can last long--like Celina Lin, we played on the same table as well--but only nine can get to the final table."

The Ladies Event at the World Series has been going almost as long as the tournament series itself, making its debut in 1977 as a $100 buy-in seven card stud event, and gradually increasing its buy in since then.

These days it appears on the schedule with an entry fee published as $10,000, although that's a clever trick of the light. After a number of men registered for the ladies event a few years ago, tournament organisers upped the price tenfold but offered a 90 percent discount to women. It's only $1,000 to enter if you're actually female, and the ruse has successfully deterred all those who are not welcome.

This year, 819 players showed up for the event--all of them female--and it played out in good spirits, for the most part in the Brasilia Room.

"Ladies events are always good to play, they are fun," Zhu said. "Girls say things like, 'Are you still mad at me that I bet at you with kings?' This is a girls conversation, not like at a normal poker table."

Not that Zhu can't handle the rough and tumble of a "normal" poker table. A former financial consultant, Xhu played her first major poker tournament in November 2013 and quickly found her stride. She bounced from Macau to Monaco to Melbourne to Prague to Perth and then Barcelona, picking up decent cashes along the way.

She is one of those rare players whose first ever recorded score is a tournament win--a HK$2,500 tournament at the Asia Championship of Poker--but it was her second outright victory, in a side event at EPT Prague, that earned her biggest score to date. The €120,000 prize comprises a little less than half of her total recorded winnings to date.

Zhu is riding the crest of two poker waves. The Ladies Event has attracted around 1,000 players for the past ten years, while the number of representatives from Asia, particularly China, is growing massively. Three days ago at the Rio, Yue Du, of Chongqing City, became the first Chinese player to win a World Series bracelet when he triumphed in the $5,000 no limit hold'em event.

Although Zhu fell short in her bid to become the second--eights losing to Amanda Baker's queens--she is committed to a new season on the APPT, EPT and, most likely, a shy at the Main Event here.

"I just try to play well and hopefully I can do the same as him [Yue Du]," she said.

It's sometime around 9:30am, and I'm the only person in the Rio's Amazon Room. When I arrived, I expected locked doors or a security officer who would want to inspect my media credentials. I found neither, and here I am in a 40,000 square foot room all by myself. It feels like I shouldn't be here, like perhaps I've broken into a church when the preacher is away.

I'm not the first person to have been in this situation by a long shot, but in my 12 years of covering the world's biggest poker tournament, this is the first time I've ever sat in this room completely alone. There are no players, no dealers, no floor staff, no security, no janitors. Only me and the steady hiss of the air conditioners. It's the poker equivalent of being the only person in the stadium where the Super Bowl is about to be played.

I'm surrounded huge banners displaying the stoic faces of all the past World Series of Poker champions, many of who are dead, some of whom are all but forgotten, some of whom may still win another title. But right now, they aren't saying anything, and neither am I, because this is as quiet as the room ever gets. It's the time when nobody is going to suffering a bad beat, and no one is going to win a championship. This is that space between heaven and hell, and it's disturbing just how peaceful the nothingness is.

Before too long, this quiet will crack. The air handlers' hum will be lost in the cacophony of hope cradled by people who are excited to have this one ridiculous opportunity to risk good money for a chance at championship that only a few dozen people in history have won.

I sat here for a few minutes trying to conjure the ghosts of all the people who failed, those people who had aces cracked on the first day or made their first mistake on the last day, those people who once thought they were going to be great but discovered they would only be also-rans. But they aren't here--neither the people nor their ghosts. There is nothing here, and accepting that fact makes the rest of it all make sense.

On any other day of the year, this big room might hold a cheerleading convention, bass fisherman's expo, or canine lingerie festival. Without those big championship banners on the wall and without the people coming in hoping to have one of their own, this place is just a humming cavern with unnatural shadows and too many echoes. It's the type of place the devil might stalk, or, if you believe the mythology of one particular WSOP player, a place the devil calls home. But that is another story for another day. Right now, this is a room waiting to fulfill its potential, expecting to ruin the dreams of several thousand people and grant the dream of one.

Now the doors are starting to crack. A man is wheeling a giant mental cart full of chips across the floor. Over the course of the next hour, those chips will handed out to each of today's entrants. Dealers dressed in black and white are rattling plastic racks in their hands and finding a comfortable spot in their chairs. A security guard in yellow has posted himself at the door to hold back the eager folks who will want to be in their seats first. In a few minutes, there will be nothing in this room but noise and dreams, and that's the way it will remain until midnight tonight when it all goes quiet again. For a lot of people, that quiet masquerades as peace and then reveals itself as the echo-chamber for miserable doubt. In that way, sometimes the noise is better.

Over the past dozen years, the people who do this kind of work have grown numb to seeing absolute defeat on the faces of nearly every person they meet in this room. It's a coroner's sense of stoicism, one required to tamp down the empathy for the defeated. If you care too much, you will feel too much, and before long, a man might start to feel a little defeated himself.

So, instead, on a morning like this, an observer can choose to look out on the empty chairs and see hope instead of ghosts. Any one of the thousands of chairs could be the one, the lucky one, the one that seats a player who may someday be a champion. Looked at through that lens, this room doesn't feel nearly so empty.

"Luca Pagano seemed to be hypnotized. Occasionally he shook his head or brought his fingers to his lips. But, basically, he just sat there staring into nothing." ---Season 1 EPT report

There are scenes that will stick with a man. A glance from across a bar. The way the air smelled on a childhood summer night. The way Luca Pagano endures defeat.

I know these things like I know my own breath. They trigger a visceral reaction, one that tugs as hard on the memory as it does the heart.

I know this about Pagano because of a night in early March 2005. It was the fourth tournament I'd covered for PokerStars. We were in Vienna on Season 1 of the European Poker Tour.

At the time, Pagano was already an Italian star, one who had two final tables in the inaugural season of the EPT. He would go on to earn $2.2 million on the live circuit and untold other riches online. Before he reached the World Series of Poker Main Event this year, he would also turn himself into a successful business owner and partner of the EPT.

But that night in Vienna, he marked himself as a man who feels defeat so deeply, it might as well be the marrow in his bones.

The first night in Vienna ended in a way I'd not seen that early in my career. I thought about it most of the night as I wrote my wrap-up, and as the sun was coming up over Austria, I wrote this.

The room cleared, the chips fell into bags, and the room's cacophony slipped into a quiet buzz. Almost all the players had taken taxis back to the hotel. One sat alone in his seat, a painfully blank stare set on his face.

Luca Pagano seemed to be hypnotized. Occasionally he shook his head or brought his fingers to his lips. But, basically, he just sat there staring into nothing.

It had been the last hand of the night. Almost all the tables had quit. Luca Pagano was facing a bet that would force him to call for all his chips. The board was about as scary as it gets. Four cards were already down, with one left to come: AKQ9 with two spades. The man who had bet into Pagano had him covered by quite a bit. Watching from tableside, I tried to put them both on hands. I considered every option. The made straight, the flush draw, two pair. All of them seemed to be possible. Pagano was in pain.

The opponent said, "Do you have the ace?"

Pagano allowed a smile, "Of course, I have an ace."

Minutes went by. I thought for a moment that Pagano was going to call, which surprised me. I was sure he would lay down the hand. Pagano is a fantastic, but conservative player. I didn't think he would call with any less than two-pair, or better yet, the made straight. Finally, after some murmuring from the railbirds behind him, Pagano said, "I'll believe you" and mucked and ace and king face-up. Top two pair. I exhaled with the words, "What a laydown."

Then, his opponent, with no particular flair, turned up AQ.

Pagano had just laid down the almost sure winner.

And so he sat staring into nothing. He still had more than 30,000 in chips going into Level 10 tomorrow (600/1200/100). But, in his mind, he had just blown it all.

He was still sitting there an hour after the game was over. He was still sitting there when I left. I wouldn't be surprised if he were still sitting there when I return later today.

That year, Pagano managed to recover and went on to finish in 14th place. It set off a globetrotting career that made sure Pagano would be a part of poker lore forever.

As he aged, he got better. He got smarter. He got richer. What he didn't get, however, was any less vulnerable to the slings and arrows of poker. By and by, we saw more of Pagano working in a suit while tending to his business while seeing less and less of him sitting at the table.

"Business requires a lot of time, energy, and focus. The poker business and many other businesses are changing dramatically because of technology and new trends," he said today. "You really need to be focused if you don't want to lose what you've been working for during the last ten years."

And so, many times, when we went looking for Pagano the Poker Player, we didn't find him.

Today, there is something new in Pagano's eye, even if the beginning of his Main Event went about as bad as it could.

Before the day was even properly underway, Pagano's 50,000 stack was cut to 2,500. Most of that came in one hand that would have Pagano talking to himself for the next few hours.

With the blinds at 150/300, Pagano was facing a raise and call to 650. He repopped it to 1,800 with pocket queens. The flop fell Q85 rainbow, and the original raiser made it 2,500. The guy in the middle folded, and Pagano opted to play it slow. It would prove to be a mistake. When a seven came on the turn, Pagano's opponent made it 5,000 to play. Pagano took his foot off the brake and raised to 15,000. The response? His opponent shoved for 33,000. Pagano, figuring there was almost no chance he was losing made the call to see six-nine for the completed gutterball straight.

"Beauty of the WSOP!" he said.

He sat and stewed on it for a while, recorded a brooding Facebook live video, and then went back to work. When we caught up with him an hour later, he was all smiles.

"I'm still planning to win this tournament," he said "A little bit of drama makes wins more exciting."

In addition to his other business interests, he's working on a wide-ranging Twitch channel and other still-secret projects. He's also finishing up a graduate program at Stanford. But none those aren't keeping him from his mission.

"I really recovered a lot of mental energy which is really needed. Every poker player needs mental energy. I feel that I have recharged," he said. "I wanted to recover my energy and get ready for the EPT which is my battleground."

That's where the real story is right now. Even if he doesn't recover in this Main Event, he's got a plan to hit the EPT hard this year, first in Barcelona next month.

"That's the very good thing about poker. You can take a break for a few months or a few years and get back at the table once you have recovered your A-game," he said. "You can still challenge everyone, which is different from other sports where when you get older, that's it."

For Pagano, his career is far from over, and if you watch him today you will see a lot of the fire he had back during his EPT-crushing days. Though he may still reel when bad beats come, there is something quicker about his recovery time.

Put another way: This is not a new Luca Pagano. It's a better one.

Congratulations Robert Franz, the first big winner of the 2016 WSOP Main Event.

There's something particularly pure about a race in which none of the runners know they are competing. But after the doors opened to the Amazon Room at the Rio Hotel and Casino at around 10:45am today, the race was well and truly on. The first trickle of players arrived to take their seats in the big one, but which of them would find their seat first?

Alexander Krisak and Manuel Flores were neck-and-neck entering the room, one through each of the two doors. They were the clear front-runners among what quickly became a bemused swarm, men and women of all ages, veering this way and that, clutching a white slip of paper at arm's length as though it was a faulty GPS.

Krisak and Flores allowed their advantage to slip. They both dithered on their way to their chair assignment, each apparently unable to find their home. Flores then did find his chair, but opted not to take it. He handed his slip to the dealer but stayed standing up, fidgeting in his rucksack and limbering up.

That allowed Franz, not even among the first five players into the room, to ghost almost unnoticed to Seat 2 Table 420 and rest there. He sat down immediately and became the first player seated in this year's Main Event, a nose ahead of David Nicholson, who resides in Seat 1 on Table 409.

I've always felt there's too much attention afford the last player seated in the World Series Main Event, right?

It's official, then: this $10,000 Big Dance is under way. It's heads down now for the coming 10 days, after which the tournament will pause with nine players left.

Mike Gorodinsky, last year's Player of the Year, was the man charged with the shuffle-up-and-deal duties this morning. He accomplished the task with agreeable haste, taking to the podium after WSOP tournament director Jack Effel went through some housekeeping, then Ty Stewart, Executive Director of the World Series of Poker, welcomed us all to the "best damn poker tournament in the world".

Eric Danis, content manager for the Global Poker Index, introduced Gorodinsky as a "gentleman and an ambassador for the game", and also ran through the results that earned him his POY title: eight cashes at the 2015 WSOP, including four top 10s, a third, a second and a title. Jason Mercier is the hot favourite to claim this year's prize, and the resumes of the two men indicate just what is required to earn the coveted title.

Gorodinsky's portrait, bigger than life size, hung behind him, capturing the moment he secured his bracelet. The image shows him clutching his winning Omaha hand, the four cards with which he secured the $50,000 Players Championship, worth $1.2 million. The winner of this year's Main Event will likely take about six times that amount, which explains the shiver of anticipation in the air.

Tournament rooms are always a peculiar place in the moments immediately prior to the day commencing. Usually, as was the case here, the dealing staff is particularly well organised, taking their seats at tables otherwise empty, with nine multicoloured stacks of chips in front of every empty chair.

The rows of tables are militarily straight and the dealers' black-and-white uniforms well pressed. They are a communist army of penguins.

Gorodinsky was one of the early arrivals too, loitering behind his poster, waiting for his moment at the podium. He was surrounded by an eight-strong film crew from China, who themselves represent one of few clear changes in the landscape from my last trip to the WSOP in 2010.

As the game has continued to become even more of a global phenomenon in the past five years, offsetting some difficult times in north America, the number of nationalities showing a real interest in the major tournaments has increased. We saw this Chinese film crew at the EPT Grand Final in Monaco in May and they are here again at the WSOP. This is hugely encouraging for the growth of the game.

But enough waffling now. The game is on. They are playing five two-hour levels today, with a dinner break after the third. That will take us close to midnight, and we'll be bouncing around the various tournaments from now until the end.

WSOP photos by PokerPhotoArchive.com.

"Miss? Miss?"

The two yellow-uniformed security officers stood over the woman on the bench. They were kind at first, whispering for the woman to wake up like one might speak to a child in the latter stages of a night's repose. The woman didn't budge.

"Miss..."

This time it was louder and a little more insistent, like you might speak to someone who will not get out of the way.

The woman was laid out, face-down on the padded leather bench in the hallway outside the Amazon room, the cavernous hall where the biggest poker event in the world was about to happen. If her lack of movement was any indication, she was really tired, really drunk, or really dead. It's Vegas, so anything was possible.

"Miss!"

From my vantage point, I couldn't tell if they poked the lady or not. Regardless, her tangled hair rose up off the bench. The high domed ceilings around the rotunda made her explanation echo through the hall.

"I'm with a player. He's playing right now."

It was 8:45am.

Welcome to the World Series of Poker Main Event.

I can only imagine the man she was waiting for, but I don't need a big imagination to do it. I've seen his ilk more times than I can count.

It's a tawdry and trite analogy, that story of last call, the one about some lonely and sodden soul working an expanse of sticky mahogany, firing pick-up lines at disinterested and eye-rolling women like they were targets instead of humans.

In a vacuum, that story may seem apt for the World Series of Poker. At a distance, it could appear as those left without a WSOP gold bracelet are stumbling through the halls of the Rio, shooting money at a target they can barely see let alone grasp. But that's not it. This isn't a depressing 1am tale from a chain restaurant bar. This is the WSOP Main Event.

It's something bigger. For all the grinders who have been here firing bullet after bullet at event after event, this is the last chance of the summer to win a major bracelet. It's less like a bar at last call than a graying, middle-aged man at the tenuous end of his relevance grasping for one last chance to achieve something big.

Or, you know, maybe I'm projecting.

However you want to look at it, this is it for the WSOP. It's the biggest day of the year for most poker players. One last chance at the Super Bowl. One final opportunity before summer camp is over for the year.

For the uninitiated, this last call is a long one. It begins at 11am local time when the 2015 Player of the Year Mike Gorodinsky will call into a microphone, "Shuffle up and deal!" It's the "Racers, start your engines" of poker, and it will fire up the next two weeks of action. There will be three opening flights running between today and Monday. During that time, thousands of hopefuls will take their shot for $10,000 apiece. Most of them will fail before next weekend. Over the next week and half, the entire field of players will be winnowed to one table of nine. Those folks will take a break and come back at the end of October to play down to the Main Event champion.

From the outside, it may see mundane, the kind of thing that would send a woman to sleep on a bench. In the middle of the maelstrom, however, it a freakshow of the best possible kind. It's ten-day period where players find out just how polarized their emotions can be. Inside of just an hour, fortune and fame can burn up and spread like ash. It's not life and death, but it's as close as poker can come.

We are, as we have been every year since 2005, on the ground here and embedding ourselves for the duration. Veteran reporter Howard Swains is at my side. Over the next couple of weeks, we'll be covering as much as we can, from the Team PokerStars Pros in the field, to EPT stars who are making it big in America, to every other ridiculous thing we find along the way. The last of those usually takes up most of our time.

If not for us, then for the masses assembling in the hallway, this is Las Vegas where the idea of last call is a joke, but this is also the last chance for a gold championship bracelet.

Or, as they say on TV: This is the Main Event.

Five things from the world of PokerStars heading into the weekend.

1. Sunday Majors

Okay, if you have interest in the Sunday Majors this weekend it likely means you're not in Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker Main Event (more on that below). Personally speaking I feel your pain.

But let's look on the bright side. With the best players in the world currently dealing with frostbite from the Rio air-con tundra, not to mention a 15 minute wait in line to use the bathroom, you can take advantage of their absence online and cash in in any of the weekend majors, including the Sunday Million.

Last week it was won by Jay-Syl11 who picked up $177,000 for first place. I know, it's not Las Vegas, but open the refrigerator, climb in and play from there. It's almost the same thing.

2. The Blog heads to Vegas

Of course, the other place to be if you can't be in Las Vegas (apart from the fridge) is on the PokerStars Blog. That's where our coverage starts from tomorrow on the WSOP Main Event, which brings the summer Series to a close.

The Amazon Room ahead of another WSOP Main Event storm

Brad Willis and Howard Swains will be on hand bringing news and stories from the tournament room, through every stage of the tournament. The writing is typically of a standard to wear out any refresh button. Bookmark this link to avoid missing any of it.

3. Mercier on track

Talking of the WSOP we wrote this week about one contest that will still go on even after the end of the Main Event in a couple of weeks from now, that of the Player of the Year.

Jason Mercier at yet another final table at the WSOP this summer

You can read the full story here, but a look back over recent years has shown Team PokerStars Pros to be prolific in this category. First Daniel Negreanu in 2013, then George Danzer a year later. Now it seems Jason Mercier is poised to take this year's title, already out to a formidable lead.

4. Did you say "a million"?

Back online and the word "million" crops up a couple of times, the first in the announcement today of the second $1 million freeroll on PokerStars.

As you can read here, it all takes place on Sunday July 17, and what's more entry into it couldn't be easier. We really mean that, it's ridiculously simple. You'll read how and say "Really? That's it?" That's guarantees, as is the $10,000 to the winner. With 75,000 players finishing in the money it's a great way to get your bank roll going, or top it up a little. Read more about it here.

5. Did you say a "Spin and Go million"?

The other use of the word "million" is in reference to the amount still up for grabs in special Spin & Go's, at least for the next three days.

As you can read about here, we're talking about $5 Spin & Go's that could make you make you $1 million better off in the space of about ten minutes.

We could explain it in great length, but time is running out. Log in, get playing, and read more about it as you play . It all ends on Sunday. Good luck.

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WSOP Photos by PokerPhotoArchive.com