Another day, another record in the PokerStars Macau Poker Room
It started with high expectations. It always does here in Macau. And it seems that we repeat ourselves when we write that expectations were not just exceeded, but they were blown out of the water once again by the PokerStars Macau team. A new landmark has been set for the Macau Poker Cup with 635 total entries for the HK$11,000 Red Dragon Main Event, smashing the prizepool guarantee and setting a new record for largest field in a freezeout tournament held in Asia.
Today was a very large and well stacked field with a host of alternates having to wait several hours to take their seats. Eventually all 352 were seated and they included the likes of Peter Jetten, Dan Sing, Jeff Rossiter, Jay Tan, Michael Marvanek, Hirotoshi Nakabo, Sangeeth Mohan, Percy Yung, Roberto Wong, Jacky Wang, Melvin Matibag, Victor Chong, Darren Judges, Will Cheong, Victor Chen, Sammy Huang, Kitty Kuo and previous MPC champions Raiden Kan and Patrick Lee.
The Team PokerStars Pros were out in force with Celina Lin, Bryan Huang, Vivian Im and Raymond Wu all hitting the felt, and were also blessed with the presence of one of the legends of the game in Johnny Chan. Unfortunately for that collection of players, only Lin was able to survive as she showed an intense focus despite a few late hiccups to make it to Day 2 with 28,700 chips.
After ten and a half levels the field was reduced to just 115, with Hoi Ian Mak claiming the end-of-day chip lead with 123,500. Ning Qin (122,100), Ni Ming (109,900), Iulian Margeloiu (108,300) and Mengdian Peng (107,000) will round out today’s top five.
Jay Tan (87,400), Winfred Yu (78,700), Sangeeth Mohan (69,100), Hirotoshi Nakabo (63,600), Victor Chen (62,700) and Victor Chong (37,200) were some of the notables to make it through the day.
Click here for the complete Day 1b chip counts
Click here for the Day 2 Seating Draw
Play will resume at 2:10pm tomorrow (GMT +8) with the goal of first bursting the bubble on the top 81 players and then getting towards the final few tables by the day’s end. Join us once again for live updates right here on the PokerStars Blog.
3:40am: That’s a wrap
Around 120 players have bagged, tagged and headed home to bed with PokerStars Macau qualifier Hoi Ian Mak looking a likely leader with over 120,000. Ni Ming and Jay Tan have also finished strongly, while Team PokerStars Pro Celina Lin has also made it through the day despite a late hiccup.
We’ll have a wrap of the day’s action with chip counts for you shortly.
3:35am: Siegman survives
The command was given for two more hands to be dealt on each table, and while most tables were able to achieve that without incident, Matt Siegman wasn’t going to let the day end that easily.
On the second last hand of the day we caught Siegman doubling up, but not before several warnings from the tournament director for threatening to expose a card, talking during a multi-way pot and then finally actually exposing a card – the A♦ . Somehow among the madness his A♦ Q♦ found a call from A♥ 10â™ on a 7♥ 4â™ 7♦ flop to double up to around 30,000.
The final hand brought more warnings. First Siegman tossed out 500 from under the gun before any cards were dealt in a poor attempt at a straddle. After limping in, he then tried to talk the big blind to his right into checking the flop, before the action had even reached that far – another warning. A player went all in and Siegman was considering a call, but not before pulling down his shirt to flash a nipple – another warning. Finally he showed his cards to the dealer, which produced a firm and final warning of a penalty tomorrow. Siegman’s actions were all done in light-hearted fashion of course, but at 4am, the time for fun was over and when Siegman’s cards eventually hit the muck, our day was done.
3:30am: You gotta win races
Percy Yung has taken a late hit to her stack after losing a preflop race. It was Yung’s 3♦ 3♥ against an opponent’s Aâ™ Qâ™ but her pair couldn’t hold on the board of 5♦ 4♦ A♥ 5â™ A♦ .
The 35,000-chip pot went to her opponent to leave Yung nursing a stack of just 11,000.
3:20am: Level up, blinds 800-1,600, ante 200
With 140 players remaining, we’ll be playing another twenty minutes before wrapping things up for the day.
3:00am: It could’ve been worse
It could’ve been worse for Celina Lin, had she decided to re-raise with her pocket kings preflop. She was in the small blind and decided to flat call following an open to 3,600 and a shove for 6,200 from a short stack. The original raiser also came along as the two live players checked down a board of A♦ 3♥ 9♦ 3♦ 5♥ .
Lin tabled K♦ Kâ™ and was probably relieved she didn’t get too aggressive as the original preflop raiser showed A♥ K♣ . However they were both trumped by the short stack who opened 10♦ 8♦ for a flush to triple up. Lin is still in good shape with around 50,000.
2:50am: Chong charges
October MPC Main Event runner up Victor Chong is starting to make some noise at the right time as his stack has surged with a big double up.
We missed the action, but saw Chong raking the pot on a board of 5♥ Q♣ Q♥ 8♦ 10♥ with Chong’s ace-queen holding against his opponent’s queen-jack. Chong is now up to 45,000.
2:40am: Play resumes
We’re back with one more hour to play until we wrap up for the evening. The big screen shows 150 players remaining with Ni Ming holding the chip lead with around 110,000 with Mengdian Peng also up above 100,000.
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