“You have to have a tremendous amount of mental and physical stamina,” said Robert Williamson III, a 34-year-old pro who proudly says he’s half the man he used to be, down from 400 pounds to 200 after gastric bypass surgery three years ago and a lot of workouts since.

“There’s an extreme amount of pressure on your body at the highest level and there’s so much money at stake. So it turns out that we really are athletes. You really do have to train and be in a lot better shape than what people think. More players are working out than ever before. It’s kind of like when Tiger Woods got on the PGA Tour. Players at the time didn’t really work out. They took their skills for granted. I swim about every other day, play basketball, go for a lot of fast walks. Antonio Esfandiari is a workout freak. Annie Duke works out religiously. Phil Ivey and Phil Gordon are in great shape.”

Jennifer Harman, as fit and tough a pro as they come, started out chatting amiably with the players at her table last Thursday but quickly was stunned, the victim of a nasty beat when her queens-high full house got rivered by a straight flush. Gone, too, before the dinner break on Day 1 was the actress and recent ladies champion Jennifer Tilly, who lost more than half her chips early when she succumbed to four jacks. Her sweatshirt-hooded boyfriend and popular World Poker Tour player, Phil “Unabomber” Laak, soon followed.

An hour after dinner, two-time World Series champion Johnny Chan, Matt Damon’s hero in the 1998 film “Rounders,” was wiped out when his aces fell to a flush.

Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, the dark bearded, long-haired pro who holds a doctorate in computer science from UCLA, exited 14 hours into the first day, about 1:20 a.m., when he moved all-in with three queens after the fourth community card. Kalee Tan, also a pro and one of several hundred women in the event, called and showed her jack-eight pocket cards for a queen-high straight. Ferguson needed a pair on the board to keep going, but got no help on the river card. Tan’s hands quivered as she raked in the chips. Ferguson wearily walked off, tipping his black cowboy hat and saying, “It’s been a pretty hectic day, but it was a lot of fun.”

Twenty minutes later, Ferguson was joined on the sideline by Full Tilt Poker teammate Erik Seidel.

By the time the first heat ended on Day 1 at about 2:30 a.m., with the blinds up to $300-$600 plus a $75 ante, the notable departures also included Josh Arieh, Mike Caro and Eskimo Clark.

Raymer — his bejeweled platinum champion’s bracelet on his right wrist, a large black polished fossil resting atop his hole cards, holographic sunglasses on whenever he played a hand — survived the round with $48,900 in chips after slipping from the $10,000 start to $3,500 early in the day. Lee Watkinson, a world-class pro from Cheney, Wash., bagged $145,800 in chips for Sunday’s second round.

The second heat of the opening round last Friday saw a further drubbing of top players — Gordon, Esfandiari, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Men “The Master” Nguyen, Cyndy Violette. The Hollywood set didn’t fare well, either, with Maguire and Rogers going out.

The final day of first-round play on Saturday was fatal to the hopes of more legendary players — Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson, T.J. Cloutier, Andy Bloch — even before the dinner break. Former NFL superstar Shannon Sharpe, playing his first tournament just five months after starting to learn the game, cruised into the break with about $17,500 in chips after being down to as low as $3,000.

Of all the players at the start, perhaps half earned their stakes from online poker tournaments to push the pool to about $56 million and the total prize money to $52.8 million. More than 1,100 arrived, all expenses paid plus $1,000 in spending money, courtesy of PokerStars.com. Once a game of cowboys and riverboat gamblers, the biggest poker tournament has become a sanitized, democratized affair that’s nerd-friendly — something lost and something gained in the process.

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