Day 1B really was massive in every sense of the word as 352 players swarmed the tables in PokerStars Macau and brought the total registrations for the event to 635 players. It’s the largest field ever recorded in a freezeout tournament in Asia and the alternates were lining up throughout the early levels of play, eager for their chance at making a deep run at the HKD $6,297,676 prize pool and HKD $1,320,000 slated for first place.

The Orient Express of Johnny Chan was one of those late arrivals and was almost derailed not long after he sat down. From a 15,000 starting stack, Chan was left with just 600 when he called the 9400 all in of Lester Edoc on a board of . Edoc’s for a straight had Chan’s over pair crushed, later turning into a flush on the river, and it was looking like a short night for Chan. He did manage to skillfully hustle his way back into the game for a few hours but eventually departed in level 6.

Of the four Team PokerStars Pros to work at the tables tonight, only Celina Lin made it through with her stack intact, ending on 28,700 in chips. Both Raymond Wu and Bryan Huang dropped out at the very end of level 3. Vivian Im didn’t get much happening all night but copped a bad beat with all in preflop against an opponent’s , which made a wheel on the river. With her stack crippled to just 3300 she exited not long after.

One other female player still in the running is Jay Tan. She finished the night on a healthy 87,400 stack and, at one point, was at risk against the chip leader of Hoi Ian Mak. With , Tan raised on the button and called the three-bet of Mak in the big blind who held a dominated . On a flop of , Mak then check-shoved on Tan to put her to the test. A call saw her almost railed when the turn came to give Mak two pair but all ended well for Tan on the river, bringing her kicker into play and shipping a 50,000 pot her way.

Also still in the running for poker glory from Day 1B are former Red Dragon champions Patrick Lee (35,400), Denny Yu (67,000) and Victor Chen (62,700).

They’re part of the 115 players who survived Day 1B and will join Day 1A’s 97 players to have a combined 212 players taking to the felt at 2.10pm for Day 2 of the MPC: Red Dragon Main Event.

Stay tuned to Poker Portal Asia for all of Day 2′s action and head to our Day 1B chip counts page and live reporting highlights for more.

But, on Thursday February 23, Day 1A finally got underway and came up embarrassingly short. Not only was the buy-in reduced at the last minute from INR 110,000 to INR 50,000 in an attempt to attract more entries, but there were just eight players who sat down to play.

One of the major reasons for the field shortfall is likely because the tournament clashes with the Macau Poker Cup: Red Dragon. Last night, the HKD $11,000 Red Dragon Main Event attracted a record 283 players for Day 1A and this included visiting players from India such as Jaswinder Suri, Dhaval Mudgal and Abhishek Goindi. It is reasonable to also expect other players from Asian countries to choose the premier PokerStars Macau event over the yet to be proven WPPT tournament.

Another explanation could be the oversaturation of poker tournaments in Goa. With series such as the India Poker Championship, India Poker Series, India Poker Legend, PokerGuru Tour and India Poker Pros, there is a major tournament there every month. The Asian Poker Tour successfully held its Goa stop in its Asian Series tournaments in November last year with 158 entries, but perhaps this was because it was an already established and trusted poker tour.

The WPPT Goa Main Event got underway at Casino Carnival with each player receiving a generous 50,000 starting stack. Alok Pawar was the first out before Arjun Pasricha hit the rail and play was stopped at six-handed. Patrick M has the lead moving into Day 2 with the chip counts at:

Patrick M – 196,850
Verhoff APMG – 72,625
Andrew Ling – 68,925
Chevalier Gael – 23,475
Jim Ramchand – 22,950
Bhuvan Bansai – 15,575

It’s not clear whether there will be another Day 1 flight running as scheduled this evening due to the shortfall in numbers, but we will keep you posted on any updates from WPPT Goa.

With just 97 players making the final cut it is Korea’s Dong Woo Kang who is currently leading the charge with 125,200 in chips. Kang added to his already ample stack as Day 1A drew to a close by eliminating PokerStars Team Asia Pro Bryan Huang’s dad – Yow Hui Ng.

From early position Kang open shoved for around 100,000 with , and Ng, sitting on a stack of 20,000, made the call for his tournament life from the button holding . Despite retaining the lead and picking up a flush draw when the flop came down Ng’s hand failed to hold when Kang hit the on the turn to win the hand and cement his chip lead.

Hot on his heels is China’s Lu ‘Lolo’ Chen, whose last minute elimination of the UK’s Billy Ngo left the latter cursing his luck and gifted Chen a pot worth over 120,000 in chips. Danny McDonagh, PokerStars Director of Live Operations for Asia-Pacific had only just announced the day’s last two hands when Ngo looked down to see Pocket Aces on the button and Chen woke up in the small blind with Pocket Jacks. The two players became embroiled in a pre-flop raising war, which ended when Ngo snap called Chen’s five-bet shove only for the board to run out and see Chen spike a set on the river.

Rounding out the top five are Kazakhstan’s Roman Paxyuth (114,800), Chinese Taipei’s Shao-hung Lee (109,700) and China’s Ke Chen (104,200). Other notables to make the cut include: Scotland’s Gordon Huntly, who survived an action-packed table to finish the day with a stack of 97,400, Nicky Tao Jin (83,300), Australia’s Alvin Cheam (61,200), the UK’s Andrew Feldman (53,800), India’s Jaswinder Suri (39,500) and Hong Kong’s David Steicke (32,200).

You can catch all the chip counts of those who successfully circumnavigated the tournament minefield here, and follow all the action as it happened on our Live Reporting page.

Action restarts on Friday 24 February at 8.10pm local time. With PokerStars Team Pros Raymond Wu, Bryan Huang, Celina Lin and Vivian Im all set to play, in addition to Johnny Chan and a whole host of other familiar faces there is still a great deal of poker to be played out before the first Red Dragon champion of 2012 is crowned.

With 2011 main event fields averaging 478 players and prize pools in excess of HKD $4,700,000 the Red Dragon has established itself as Asia’s premier poker series and this trend appears set to continue.

It’s certainly looking like it will be a record-setting affair with Australia’s Panagiotis “Panos” Makridis conquering a record-breaking field of 291 players to take down Event 3, the HKD $1,500 deepstack, winning an impressive HKD $88,500 in the process.

Germany’s Sandro Simon also triumphed over a record-breaking field, seeing off challenges from 212 players to take down Event 4, the HKD $4,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament, and claim the HKD $179,500 first prize.

The current Red Dragon main event record of 509 runners, set last February, saw 217 players ante-up the HKD $11,000 entry on Day 1A. With every side event more than doubling their respective guarantees a new record is being set each passing day on the MPC’s 9-day tournament schedule.

“I’m quietly confident that we’ll set a new mark in the Red Dragon,” said Danny McDonagh, PokerStars Director of Live Operations for Asia-Pacific. “Our team is anxious to see the turnout for Day 1A after such a stellar start to the week.”

PokerStars Team Asia Pro Raymond Wu and 2011 Asia Player of the Year Hung-sheng “Shaq” Lin are expected to hit the felt for this opening flight, as is the Orient Express himself, Johnny Chan, so expect the action to be both fast and furious.

With a brand new poker season comes a new Asia Player of the Year race and with a year’s sponsorship on offer, as well as a great deal of cold, hard, cash there is all to play for so let the games begin!

Tune in to Poker Portal Asia’s Live Reporting for more.

The news initially came to our attention via a Facebook group thread on Team SGPoker after one of its members, Onn Daniel, leaked the story last night. Daniel says he works as a pit supervisor at RWS and posted:

“Inside info…RWS 5th of March will be opening poker room…which is Texas Holdem poker…feel free to visit me there – I most likely will be anchoring as Pit Sup for Texas Holdem poker for most of my shift.”

Poker Portal Asia then reached out to a Resorts World source who has since confirmed for us that the news is indeed true.

Daniel was also able to provide a few extra details on the poker room. According to him, cash table stakes would start at SGD $2.50/$5 blinds and rake would be 5 per cent to a maximum of SGD $50. In line with Singapore casino regulations, Daniel also confirmed that locals would still have to pay the SGD $100 levy to enter the casino before they could sit down and play.

While this is great news for players in Singapore it could also mean big things for others around Asia. It’s likely that tournament organisers in the region such as the Asian Poker Tour (APT) and Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) will be clamoring to get their foot in the door with a Singapore stop added to their tours.

We’ll keep you updated with more details and any official announcements from RWS as they come to hand.

As previously reported, the Mega Million Main Event is DafaPoker’s biggest tournament to date with a CNY 1 million (USD $158,000) maximum prize pool. What makes this event unique is that during the event, players will initially compete online, but when the field whittles down to 30 players the tournament will resume in a live setting during the Asian Poker Tour (APT) Macau tournament in late July. Additionally, each of the qualifying players will receive a USD $500 package which includes transportation, accommodation and spending allowance.

With this format, the qualifying online players will have the exciting chance to meet some of the best poker players in the region and participate in the APT, one of Asia’s most prestigious tournament organisers.

There are a variety of ways to qualify for this big event, all of which do not have a cash buy-in fee. Instead, players will be required to use their accumulated Gold Coins (GC) or tokens to sign up.

For existing DafaPoker players, there are several ways to enter:

- Daily Mega Million Qualifier with a buy-in fee of 5 GC or Token
- SNG Mega Million Qualifier with buy-in fees ranging from 10-50 GC
- Weekly Mega Million Qualifier with a buy-in fee of 7,500 GC or Token
- Monthly Mega Super Satellite with a buy-in fee of 30,000 GC or Token

For newly registered DafaPoker players, there is the New Player Mega Daily Freeroll. Winning players will receive 2 tokens as prizes to be used towards the next steps leading up to the Mega Million Main Event.

For the full schedule and details of the satellites, check out DafaPoker as well as their newly launched mini sites at www.mmdzpk.com and www.1mpuke.com.

The norm with these kind of releases is to also announce a new venue at the same time but it’s likely that the approaching Macau Millions on March 23 forced the hand of PokerStars Macau early. While initial rumours had suggested that PokerStars Macau was moving across the road to Hotel Lisboa, World Gaming Magazine sources later suggested that the poker room was instead heading further afield to the Cotai Strip’s City of Dreams (COD).

This scenario seemed the less likely of the two options considering that the COD complex already had a previous foray into poker in the form of the Hard Rock Poker Lounge that closed mid-2011. However, this latest rumour appears to be gaining some weight.

According to a Poker Portal Asia source, PokerStars Macau has been shopping out their proposal to many of Macau’s casinos and COD might be interested in giving poker another try. Details of the deal would likely see PokerStars Macau guaranteeing a certain number of tournaments and players each year while leaving the cash tables under COD control.

In line with regulations imposed by Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), a casino must have an operating cash poker room within the premises in order to hold poker tournaments. However, having poker tables is a dilemma for casinos in Macau, which are under restrictions for the amount of total gaming tables they allowed to operate. Other games such as baccarat are far more profitable than poker for the casino and the table cap appeared to be the reason for previously closing the Hard Rock Poker Lounge.

PokerStars Macau has a policy of refusing to comment on rumours before making official announcements but we will endeavour to get confirmation when Poker Portal Asia visits PokerStars Macau for live reporting of the Macau Poker Cup: Red Dragon Main Event on February 23-27, 2012.

We’ll keep you updated on PokerStars Macau’s search for a new home as details come to hand.

“This is my first time playing a tournament in Macau… I plan to play all the events this time,” said Cui. “I’m planning to build up my (APOY) points and get the sponsorship from PokerStars Macau this year.”

Cui is certainly well on his way to achieving this goal. He was an unstoppable force at the final table where he amassed a dominating 9:1 chip lead upon entering the heads up round against Taiwanese Chen An Lin. With all the momentum in his side, Cui swept the game when he called Lin’s shove with his against Lin’s . Not only did Cui have Lin dominated preflop but with a board of , Cui won the title with the nut flush.

Event #2 HKD $1000 + 2 Rebuys Charity Event was also underway this weekend with a total of 94 players helping raise HKD $47,100 for local charities such as Caritas de Macau and the Macau Child Development Association. Min Soon Lim from Singapore won the event and took home HKD $47,800 plus a Red Dragon entry. Lim previously had a runner-up finish in the same event and had this to express after going one place better, “I’m so happy, this is my first time winning a tournament. I was so unlucky last time.”

There were several notables seen playing this weekend namely Team PokerStars Pros Celina Lin, Bryan Huang and Raymond Wu. The 2011 Asia Player of the Year, Shaq Lin, was also in attendance and, with more events to come, we should be seeing a lot more pros hit the felt over the next week.

Stay tuned to Poker Portal Asia as we’ll have more updates on the MPC: Red Dragon including live reporting of the Main Event from Thursday, February 23 at 8.10pm local time.

In 2011, a large percentage of the players who participated in APT Asian Series Cebu were from within the Philippines, with 74 out of the total 126 entrants. The 2012 APT Asian Series Cebu, on the other hand, saw that ratio dramatically change. Not only did the total number of players double to 251 entrants, but only 26 per cent (or 63 players to be exact) were from the Philippines.

This is a big change when you consider that, historically, in APT tournaments held in the Philippines we have witnessed around 60 to 65 per cent of the field being Filipinos. We asked APT Tournament Manager Jason Morris if he had some ideas on why this was the case.

“I believe most of it has do with the marketing plan that APT has created in the Asian region. Singapore, Japan and China have not legally opened up poker to the public but the APT has assisted many of their government approved charity poker events. APT has also partnered with tournaments such as the Zodiac Tour in Singapore, Tokyo Poker Tour and, soon, the upcoming China Poker Carnival,” said Morris.

Reflecting on the recent stats concerning international players at the 2012 APT Asian Series Cebu, these partnerships appear to be responsible for the boost in numbers. A significant 40 per cent of entrants came from China and Japan combined. Another 8 per cent were from Singapore and, with the addition of Goa to the APT Asian Series last year, 4 per cent were from India.

Rounding out the list of international attendance were the avid Korean players whose migration into the Philippines for the past few years has no doubt contributed to the overall foreign player turnout in poker that has been booming throughout the country.

The effect of this increase can only mean good things for poker in the region. As more visiting players attend events, it will have a flow on effect for businesses in the areas, starting with the venue for the tournament and surrounding hotels. This will then trickle down to retail outlets, restaurants and, of course, bars (if we know poker players).

APT Tournament Director Lloyd Fontillas commented, “The amount of foreign players we are attracting to APT events is nothing but positive. For APT Asian Series Cebu, I am certain that casino and property numbers were up for the week, in terms of slots, table games and restaurants. Poker is just at the tip of the iceberg here in Asia, compared to the market in USA and Europe, and I believe these numbers will continue to increase.”

The next APT event to arrive will be APT Philippines on April 19-25, 2012 and we’ll be sure to keep an eye on the numbers to see whether Fontillas is right in his predictions.

On Saturday, play went down until the money bubble burst courtesy of Vineet Bailur who departed at seven-handed. Many of the notables also exited on this day including APT Asian Series Goa champion, Sangeeth Mohan, who three-bet shoved with and ran into Prabhat Mukherjea’s , busting him in 12^th place.

The returning chip counts for Sunday stood at:

1. YJ Kim – 249,500 chips
2. Sumit Malik – 163,500 chips
3. Prabhat Mukherjea – 154,000 chips
4. Easwar Ramaswamy – 124,500 chips
5. Vinay Suchede – 92,500 chips
6. Kishore Marimganti – 56,000 chips

Easwar Ramaswamy was the first to go with his failing to improve in an all in preflop situation against Prabhat Mukherjea’s . However, Mukherjea didn’t last much longer after his button shove holding was called off by Sumit Malik in the big blind with a dominating .

Then it was again a case of the buster becoming the bustee when Malik departed in 4^th place. With , he lost a preflop all in race against Suchede’s . At three-handed, Suchede kept his momentum up by calling YJ Kim’s three barrels of betting culminating in an all in on the river. The board was and Suchede held just , which was good enough to bust Kim out in 3^rd place with a bluff gone wrong.

Facing Suchede in the heads up match was Kishore Marimganti who came into the day as the short stack but through successive double ups managed to remain in the game. After some back and forth action, Marimganti’s end came when he laid a trap by limping with on the button, only to find Suchede raising it up holding . Marimganti three-bet and then insta-called Suchede’s shove. The board of ensured Suchede’s dominating hand kept the lead and snared him the championship.

PGT Main Event payouts:

1. Vinay Suchede – INR 550,000
2. Kishore Marimganti – INR 320,000
3. YJ Kim – INR 235,000
4. Sumit Malik – INR 165,000
5. Prabhat Mukherjea – INR 110,000
6. Easwar Ramaswamy – INR 70,000