All great stories must have a beginning and on Saturday the latest Macau poker saga kicked off with the first of four Day 1 flights of the MPC22: Red Dragon Main Event.
In the end there were 110 total players who ponied up the HK$12,000 (~US$1,550) buy-in to take part in Day 1a. This is a modest size for PokerStars LIVE Macau's standards, but there is no doubt the next three Day 1 flights will eclipse this number.
After 11 levels lasting 40 minutes each, there were 26 survivors and it was the Netherland's Danny van Zjip who bagged the chip lead. He will now have three days off before returning on Day 2 to continue to try and dominate his opponents.
Van Zjip wasn't the only one to have a productive Day 1a.
Korea's Jaehun Kim (120,800) and China's Yang Zhang (106,800) finished 1st and 2nd on the leader board respectively and rounded out the only three players to finish with stacks of at least six figures.
Zhang's name might sound familiar. That's because he won the APPT supported Beijing Cup back in December for a score of more than US$100,000. Zhang defeated a field 346 to win that title and while he will have to get through more players here in the Red Dragon, he clearly knows what it takes to navigate a field.
Some of the other players who secured a Day 2 berth include Macau local Huidong Guo (92,700), India's Haresh Kukreja (83,700) and Kunal Patni (80,300) and Ireland's Liam O'Donoghue, just to name a few. You can find full counts on the link below.
MPC22 - Day 1A Top Ten
Danny van Zijp (Netherlands) - 137,500
Jaehun Kim (Korea) - 120,800
Yang Zhang (China) - 106,800
Huidong Gu (Macau) - 92,700
Haney Daryanani (Hong Kong) - 85,600
Haresh Rajkumar Kukreja (India) - 83,700
Kunal Patni (India) - 80,300
Liam Oliver O'donoghue (Ireland) - 80,100
Xu Tan (China) - 73,800
Chak Fung Lam (Hong Kong) - 70,800
Click here for complete end-of-day 1A chip counts
While all the aforementioned players made it through to Day 2, there were more than 80 others who weren't so fortunate.
One of those players was none other than Team PokerStars Pro Aditya Agarwal.
The MPC22 Red Dragon was Agarwal's first outing in Macau wearing the red spade patch on his shirt and he will certainly be wishing he had a better story to tell as he couldn't win a flip with Ax-Kx against pocket queens to ultimately find the rail.
All the 26 surviving players will now have three days off as new batches of players hit the tables to try and make Day 2 themselves.
The second Day 1 flight begins at 3:00pm local time on Sunday and once again you will be able to find all the updates you need right here at the PokerStarsBlog. Join us then!