Some notables in today's field include Grant Levy, Tony Dunst, Barry Greenstein, Celina Lin, Jonny Vincent, Harry Demetriou, Wooka Kim, John Juanda, James Honeybone, Liz Lieu, Mike 'Timex' McDonald and winner of the 2007 APPT Macau High Rollers Event, Eric Assadourian.
Dragon ceremony.
Cards are in the air. Poker legend Johnny Chan called out the magic words, "Shuffle up and deal!" after a traditional Chinese dragon ceremony. Three Chinese dragons went from table to table to the accompaniment of a large Chinese percussion section (drum, cymbals and gong), blessing each of the players with good fortune and chasing away all of the evil spirits from the tournament floor.
As we understand it, that means there will be no bad beats during the tournament today.
Welcome to the Grand Waldo Hotel and Casino in Macau for the 2008 Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau Main Event. To date, 403 players have registered for this HK$25,000 (US$3,200) event. Day 1 will be split across three flights, with the first flight of approximately 120 players going off in about thirty minutes. Several notable members of Team PokerStars have traveled to Macau specifically for this event, including Barry Greenstein, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, and former WSOP Main Event champion Joe Hachem.
As usual, PokerNews will be bringing you live updates direct from the tournament floor for the duration of this event. Join us at 1:30 p.m. local time for all of the action!
