Scott Lazar, a Magician, and Cyndy Violette, a Woman, Among Day 1B Chip Leaders at WPT Five-Diamond Something Something Doyle Brunson Something Something Classic

The Entities that comprise Wicked Chops Poker will admit that when the 2005 WSOP ME final table concluded and Scott Lazar, one of the magic-workers who helped usher in the "Magician Invasion" started by Antonio Esfandiari a few years back, banked his 1.5M, well, we just didn't think we'd hear much from Lazar again that didn't involve sawing a woman in half or pulling a quarter from behind our ear. However, Lazar did manage two cashes at this year's WSOP. And in the final major tourney of 2006, the DBNAPC, Lazar ended day 1B as one of the chip leaders, stacked at 95k. Viola.

Right behind Lazar is tournament leaderboard mainstay--and woman--Cyndy Violette, who is stacked at 92k.

They both trail Tony Ma, who ended day 1B as the big stack with 151k.

Other notable bigs going into merged day 2 play include WCP Power Player Index leader Daniel Negreanu (70k), Fabrice "The Frog" Soulier (70k), Shane Schlegler (68k), Kenna James (63k), Joe Tehan, whose name sounds too much like "Tehran" for our liking (62k), Chip Reese (61k), and 2006 WSOP ME final table-ist Michael Binger (61k).