The opening day of the 2014 ACOP Main Event exceeded all expectations with 286 total entrants ponying up HK$100,000 (~US$13,000) to take to the tables of PokerStars LIVE Macau.
Then once registration was closed on Day 2, the total field was locked out at 291 - by far the largest ACOP in the tour's history and a staggering increase of more than 40% on last year's field.
APPT President Danny McDonagh was elated with that number.
"I think we can get a very decent 300 plus number next year," McDonagh told the PokerStarsBlog. "Then if we can start to push it to 400, 500 in the next two three years, then we will be competing with any other event around the world outside of the World Championship in Vegas."
That field means there is HK$27,092,100 (~US$3.5 million) up for grabs this week and that the eventual champion will be HK$6,300,000 (~US$815,000) richer.
There were 172 players who bagged chips at the end of Day 1 to keep themselves in contention for a piece of that massive prize pool.
Then, after five 90-minute levels on Day 2, only 62 were still alive.
Start-of-day chip leader Rory Young wasn't able to make it through to Day 3, while players like Joe Hachem, Jackie Glazier, Ismael Bojang, Tobias Reinkemeier, Jeff Rossiter and Greg Merson were just some of many to join Young on the rail.
There were six Team PokerStars Pros to begin Day 2 and only two of them survived at the end of the night. Somewhat aptly it was the home-felt heroes Celina Lin and Raymond Wu who managed to make it through the night, while visiting superstars Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier, Eugene Katchalov and Jonathan Duhamel all hit the rail.
Duhamel was eliminated in a bit of a cooler situation, getting all his chips in on the river of a [6d][2s][9s][3d][3s] board with [ts][8s] for a flush. Duhamel's opponent called with pocket deuces for the full house to send the French-Canadian to the rail.
While Team Pros and superstars were hitting the rail at a steady pace throughout the day, other big names like Sorel Mizzi were doing the opposite.
Mizzi became one of the chip leaders midway through Day 2 mostly due to putting a cooler on Samantha Cohen when he had pocket aces and trumped Cohen's pocket kings, all in preflop.
From there, Mizzi bullied his way into the overall chip lead, finishing up with 439,90 when his next closest competitor Terry Gonzago only finished with 309,700.
Some of the others who finished Day 2 with big stacks include Terrence Chan, Ami Barer, Joseph Cheong, Daniel Colman and recent WSOP APAC champion Scott Davies, while Mike McDonald, Billy "The Croc" Argyros, MPC20 champion Buyanjargal Bold and Dan Smith also bagged up enough chips to keep themselves in contention.
As previously mentioned, both Celina Lin and Raymond Wu also made it through the night.
Wu bagged up 178,600 and Lin finished with 135,10. Both of these local Team PokerStars Pros have had huge success at PokerStars LIVE Macau in the past and will be looking to continue that trend this week.
All the 62 surviving players will now return from 3:00 p.m. on Thursday and likely play into the money and continue moving towards the final table. You will be able to find full chip count information and the table draw in the live reports section at the top of the 2014 ACOP page.
Before that, however, it's time for the players to let their hair down at the famous ACOP player's party. There is going to be free booze, food and a beer pong tournament -the staples of a great time. We will tell you all about it on Thursday, at which point you will also be able to continue following the coverage of the 2014 ACOP Main Event.