Since increasing the buy-in to $5,200 in 2008, the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) has attracted at least 2,000 entrants each year, with the high-water mark coming last year when 2,443 players registered for the tournament. After Black Friday nobody was expecting the 2011 running of the WCOOP Main Event to approach those numbers, but in the end PokerStars is likely to be very happy with the overall turnout of 1,627 entrants that registered for Day 1 on Sunday. The WCOOP has grown into one of the most prestigious tournaments in the poker world, rivaling live tournaments like the PCA, the Aussie Millions, the WSOP Europe and other major tournaments around the world. Evidence of this can be seen in the number of high-profile players who entered the tournament; the swaths of US poker pros who moved out of the country to partake in the WCOOP; and the fact that one online poker news outlet even has a “live” reporting team covering the event! The prize-pool ballooned to over $8 million as players kept registering, topping out at $8,135,000 with a first-place prize of over $1.4 million and a second-place payday of just over $1 million. In all 189 players will cash in the tournament. At the end of Day 1 the WCOOP Main Event had burst the money bubble (which stood at 189) ending a long day of action with just 176 players still in the hunt for the title. Among the big names who will be returning for Day 2 are Luke “lb6121″ Schwartz, Terrence “Unassigned” Chan, Niki “RealAndyBeal” Jedlicka, Jared “Harrington10″ Bleznick, David “Gunslinger3″ Bach, Shawn “buck21″ Buchanan, Steve “gboro780” Gross, Tom “kingsofcards” Marchese, Mickey “mement_mori” Petersen, Mike “goleafsgoeh” Leah, and Team PokerStars Pros Bertrand “ElkY” Grosspellier, Johnny Lodden, Mathias de Muelder, and Eugene Katchalov. Katchalov will not only be returning for Day 2 of the WCOOP Main Event but also for Day 2 of the $10,300 8-Game Mix Championship where he finds himself battling for the title and the $210k that will be awarded to the winner of that event. Here is a look at the Top 10 chip counts heading into Day 2 of the WCOOP Main Event: 1. “NUTZBOT” — 649,769 2. “dan82mur” — 600,527 3. “zivziv” — 587,440 4. “tonkaaaa” — 494,260 5. Luke “lb6121″ Schwartz — 465,817 6. Andrey “ThePateychuk” Pateychuk — 460,641 7. Denys “SantaZzz” Chufarin — 458,036 8. Chris “Big Huni” Hunichen — 438,229 9. Dave “sexygee” Gent — 424,339 10. Marty “TheLipoFund” Mathis — 417,848