The incumbents of Day 1A and Day 1B huddled together to form Day 2A of the World Series of Poker Main Event. It started with 1,624 players, it ended with 650 remaining, and this is what happened in between.

I think it was Bob Dylan who said that anyone who was not busy being born was busy dying. Well, Day 2A of the $10,000 buy-in World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event was a birth of sorts for one man, and we saw 974 players dreams die at the other end of the scale.

The 470 Day 1A survivors and the 1,154 Day 1B survivors competed for a place in Day 3 of a tournament of Sisyphean proportions. At the end of five levels only 650 remained from the maelstrom that had preceded them.

The birth I spoke about was Anand Amar who finished the day as the chip leader bagging up 603,500 chips. According to the Hendon Mob, Amar has only ever cashed once in his life, and that was for $750 at the WPT500 at the Aria in 2014. It was a performance that made his hairs on the back of his neck stand and salute. Just how far he can go is anybody’s guess.