Just looking over the day 1 chip counts here are a few names who jump out near the top..

Carl Olson $226,100 - thoughtful player with tons of tournament experience. Tons of composure. Expect colson to make a deep run with this good start.

Daniel Alaei $187,700 - ditto with the added bonus that everyone is scared shitless of him.

Bill Edler $168,000 - just won a bracelet, his game is tough to put my finger on, which I think is a good sign

Darrell Dicken $155,400 - another guy who scares the crap out of everybody, has won a major tournament, probably one of the hungriest on my list

Rep Porter $147,600 - not a NL holdem specialist but an excellent poker professional with tons of tournament experience. Again valuing composure here as it doesn’t take 5th level thinking to outplay most of the players in the field.

David The Dragon $140,000 - obviously one of the sickest tournament players around, see no reason why he should win, either that or he will dump a huge stack in one hand. Lot of respect for this guy and another high “hungry” rating.

Steven Jacobs $124,700 - Penn grad, cut his teeth playing heads up online for ridiculous sums against me. Played a little bit with him on day 1, he pretty confidently check-called all his chips with top pair on the river (huge river bet after the guy had shown tons of strength) and was shown 7-high. In November 05 I got 27th at WPT Foxwoods, he got 10th, we were talking afterwards and he said something like “in the next yr I bet both of us will make a TV table, it’s pretty easy,” I wasn’t so sure, seemed pretty hard. It happened for me in April the next yr but he’s still due a deep run, I hope stevesbets can do it.

Brandon Adams $120,400 - Harvard genius, just won close to final table money against Farha which isn’t that relevant but pretty badass, really pesky aggressive game that sucks to go up against. Monster cash game success, yet to make the major tournament breakthrough but is due for a deep run I think.

Michael Binger $89,900 - almost cliche to mention hm, but I played a little bit with him when I went deep (surprise, he was deep also), and I was impressed with his game, very controlled aggression, finding good spots to pick up chips. Genius mold like Adams, must have a ton of confidence right now and obviously knows how to get deep in the main event, so won’t be surprised to see him around again.

Carlos Mortensen $86,800 - Just a winner plain and simple. Wouldn’t be surprised to see him win again.