Handful of High Rollers Advance in PokerStars Macau Main Event

Now that the dust has settled in Macau, with Steve O’Dwyer standing among the rubble to claim another Super High Roller title, the attention turns to the HK$42,400 PokerStars Championship Macau Main Event. The $5,000 event opened today, with 193 players coming out for Day 1A and nearly hitting a seven-figure prize pool through the first of two starting flights.

113 players advanced through that first flight, with China’s Zigao Yu leading the way with 162,400. Yu likely feels right at home, while the rest of the leader board is in foreign territory, geographically at least. Australia’s Daniel Laidlaw, Canada’s Ryan Yu and Ukraine’s Dmytro Denysenko round out the top-four but the biggest names find themselves a little lower on the leader board.

Those big names are also some of the fields biggest players, as a handful of Day 1A survivors took a break from their High Roller schedules to jump into the Main Event action. England’s Jack Salter is onto Day 2 with 86,900, while Spain’s Sergio Aido is looking to continue his Asian hot streak, after he won February’s HK$100,000 Macau Poker Cup High Roller. Aido is through with 80,300, followed by Daniel Dvoress (65,000), who is above the 45,000 chip average.

Reigning GPI Player of the Year David Peters (35,100) and Canada’s Sam Greenwood (33,300) are also through, albeit below that threshold, along with Isaac Haxton, Fabian Quoss and Nick Petrangelo who all advanced with short stacks.

They’ll be on the lower end of the spectrum heading into Day 2 but could try again during Day 1B of the PokerStars Championship Macau Main Event, which begins tomorrow at 6 PM local time. Or 6 AM EST, or 3 AM PST, if you are keeping score at home. Updates from Macau can be found on PokerStarsBlog.com.