Cash literally rained down on players on Day 1 of the 2014 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

The publicity stunt had people buzzing on what proved to be a very interesting start to this year’s WSOP.

For the entire summer we’ll be counting down three highlight-reel stories from Las Vegas every morning in the WSOP 3-Bet.

In today’s daily WSOP 3-Bet we’ll take a look at Vanessa Selbst doing what she does best, Daniel Negreanu talking about his first WSOP and that whole money drop situation.

1) Selbst, Rast Among Early $25k Leaders

Picking up where she left off.

There was really only one open event running last night but it was a big one: the $25,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Mixed Max.

The top 10 is a veritable murderer’s row of A-list poker players with Vanessa Selbst holding the chip lead and Brian Rast, Michael Mizrachi, Dan Cates close behind.

It’s almost par for the course for Selbst who has a sparkling record in high-roller tournaments. In fact Selbst has already cashed for over $1.3 million in high-rollers in 2014.

It bodes well for Selbst who has already confirmed she will be playing the $1 million buy-in Big One for One Drop later this summer.

For now she will concentrate on getting past the 60 remaining players in the $25k Mixed Max. Here are the top 10 chip leaders according to the WSOP:

• 1. Vanessa Selbst – 562,800
• 2. Brian Rast – 557,400
• 3. Michael Mizrachi – 399,300
• 4. Jason Mo – 393,000
• 5. Fabrice Touil – 327,600
• 6. Dan Cates – 317,000
• 7. Ravi Raghavan – 275,000
• 8. John Juanda – 264,800
• 9. Stephen Chidwick – 260,600
• 10. Aaron Jones – 235,800

2) WSOP Fires $10,000 into the Air

Cash for everyone!

Well, this is a first. 

Caesars decided to start the 2014 WSOP by literally firing $10,000 into the Amazon Room.

Yep. You heard that right, if you were milling about the Amazon Room at noon yesterday than you had a shot at 10,000 one-dollar bills that were dropped on the Event 1 field.

Some players dove to the floor to hoover up as much cash as they could while the vast majority remained relatively calm and maybe picked up a dollar or two to tip the cocktail server at their table.

WSOP executive director Ty Stewart said the money drop was about bringing a good vibe to the Rio to start the series. He also mentioned there will be more surprises coming over the course of the summer.

We’re holding out for $1,000 penny night. Remember to wear a helmet.

3) Negreanu: “Playing the WSOP Back in the Day was for Real Men!”

Daniel Negreanu

iGaming’s comprehensive Daniel Negreanu interview continued with Part 2 today and it’s a good one.

After a slower start in Part 1 that included much of Negreanu’s early life, Part 2 really gets rolling with the Canadian’s first experiences at the WSOP and meeting Phil Ivey, John Juanda and Allen Cunningham.

Interestingly Negreanu went broke numerous times early on and also received some major help from Todd Brunson to get his WSOP career going.

Head over to iGaming for the complete piece but here’s one of the best quotes that illustrates the difference between the WSOP in the 1990s and now:

If someone sat down at your table and you didn’t know them there was no chance they were any good. It was just impossible, because if they were good, they would’ve been in Vegas playing before that. The biggest change with today is, if you sit down at a table there’s some 20-year old kid I don’t recognize and people tell me that he’s won $4,000,000 online that year.