Yesterday evening, a 184-strong field for Day 1A of APPT Macau was hacked back to 81 players. But like the hydra of mythology, day one fields at major poker tournaments only grow more powerful the more they are attacked, meaning today's battle for the poker gods will be against a new head sprouted overnight, which cannot help but be even stronger.
The target suggested by tournament administrators here was a 400-player affair, over the two opening flights, which would create a prize pool of HKD $10m (nearly USD $1.3m). Given the excellent start we saw yesterday, it would be a surprise for us not to reach that figure. The card room of PokerStars Live at the City of Dreams will be full to bursting this afternoon.
We will play seven one-hour levels regardless of the turnout, taking us through from the 3pm start time to about 10.30pm local time. The nominal target for the players will be Nahum Lum's chip-leading 158,500 stack from last night, but just surviving the day will be a more realistic aim for most. The action is always frantic here, and the 20,000 starting stack can quickly dwindle.
As ever, the best way to follow all the action will be via the main APPT Macau page on PokerStars Blog, which has hand-by-hand action and chip counts in the top panel, and feature pieces filtering in below that. PokerStars.tv are also in the building, bringing occasional video dispatches.
We will be back when action is under way, with our first look at the Day 2 field. Bryan Huang and Vivian Im will be representing Team PokerStars Pro. We await to find out who is representing Team Everyone Else.