"It's a 'party start.'"
So explained APPT President Danny McDonagh when asked about the later-than-usual 5 p.m. starting time for today's second day of play in the $100,000 (HKD) buy-in Asia Championship of Poker Main Event. The ACOP welcome party at the D2 nightclub in downtown Macau happened late last night, and it was with that in mind today's schedule was considerately adjusted forward.
How was the party? We'll be answering the question non-specifically, thank you, to say that indeed, good times were had by all.
How good? Again, avoiding particulars, we'll simply affirm that everyone is most grateful today for the thoughtful foresight of the schedule-makers.
That'll do with the questions. Also, there's no need to shout.
Not all 140 of the 184 players who survived yesterday's first day of play were at the D2 last night, but many certainly were. We definitely saw a number of members of Team PokerStars there, and all 10 who entered the Main Event will be back at the Grand Waldo again today for Day 2.
Of the Team Pros, Celina Lin will be returning to the biggest stack with 72,575, good enough to place her just outside of the top 10 in the counts to begin Thursday.
Of her teammates, Raymond Wu and Eugene Katchalov are also returning to above-average stacks, while Naoya Kihara and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier come back super short and in need of early double-ups.
All will be chasing end-of-Day-1 chip leader Yue Hin Lam of Macau who more than quadrupled his starting stack to bag up 122,525.
Just two other players cracked six figures yesterday -- Mike Kim of Korea (103,900) and Joseph Cheong of Canada (101,850).
All of the 140 returners will be continuing their quest to secure spots inside the top 22 and thus be part of those who will divide the whopping $17,305,200 (HKD) prize pool, with the ultimate goal being to claim the first prize of $4.24 million (HKD), worth about $543,590 USD.
It goes without saying we'll be using these extra couple of hours this afternoon to rest up before returning with our continuing coverage of the Main Event. See you back here in a while when the ACOP Main Event party gets started again.
Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.