The HK$500,000 (US$64,516) three-day Super High Roller Event got underway this evening in the City of Dreams, Macua and it's attracted a star-studded field.
So far, 29 (21 of which have taken their seats) players have registered but that number is sure to grow as registration is open until the end of level 8, which is the first level of Day 2. Players can re-buy/re-enter up to two times so the prizepool could end up being considerable.
Steve O'Dwyer is the reigning champion and he'll be taking his seat later after busting from the Main Event a short while ago. Christoph Vogelsang and Mikhail Shalamov are in the same boat and when they take their seats they'll be joining the likes of Fedor Holz, Isaac Haxton, Pratyush Buddiga, David Peters, Jason Mo, John Juanda, Mustpha Kanit, Stephen Chidwick, Ivan Luca and live satellite winner, Andy Andrejevic.
PokerNews will bring you occasion updates from the event and full coverage from the final table on Sunday.
Sergey Lebedev just doubled up against Thomas Ward.
Ward and Lebedev were heads up to the flop of and both players checked.
The turn was the and Ward checked again. Lebedev bet 40,000. Ward called.
The river was the and Ward checked once again. Lebedev shoved the rest of his 269,000 in and put Ward in the tank. Ward set aside calling chips, but didn't put them in straight away, instead he waited for about two minutes. Finally, he did call and Lebedev turned over [jht] for trip tens and the double up.
Connor Drinan and Patrick Mahoney have headed off for a break with the rest of the players in very different moods.
They had made it to the river in a hand where the board read . Mahoney led out for 122,000 from the big blind and called after Drinan raised to 300,000. "Nuts," said Drinan and opened for top full house.
After losing three players within a few minutes to bring the field down to 11 players, there have been very few large pots. There have been a few shoves, but no calls.
Zhou Zhou managed to double up, and is still working his short stack. He has shoved over Nan Tu's opening raises on two occasions in the past 20 minutes.
Ka Cheong Wong is taking his time making decisions. On his latest shove, the action folded to him in the small blind and he tanked for about two minutes before finally shoving all in. Xixiang Luo was a bit faster in making his decision. After asking for a count and checking his hand, he folded. There will be a break once there are nine players left as the final nine will redraw.
Patrick Mahoney just doubled through Nan Tu. Patrick Mahoney raised to 40,000 from the cutoff. Nan Tu shoved all in from the big blind and Mahoney snap called.
Mahoney had and Tu had . The board ran out and Mahoney won the hand and doubled up.
Thirty-two players have registered so far in the HK$500,000 (US$64,516) Super High Roller event, with 29 of them shown up. Conor Drinan and Sergey Lebedev are two of those registered but they're still in the Main Event.
Some of the more recent players to have taken their seats include: Ivan Luca, Sam Trickett and Erik Seidel. John Juanda, David Peters, Stephen Chidwick and Zuo Wang are the four players who have re-entered, meaning 33 entries are in the prizepool.
The chip leader midway through Level 4 is Anton Astapau on 955,000 chips (players started with 500k).
and both players checked.
and Ward checked again. Lebedev bet 40,000. Ward called.
and Ward checked once again. Lebedev shoved the rest of his 269,000 in and put Ward in the tank. Ward set aside calling chips, but didn't put them in straight away, instead he waited for about two minutes. Finally, he did call and Lebedev turned over [jht] for trip tens and the double up.
. Mahoney led out for 122,000 from the big blind and called after Drinan raised to 300,000. "Nuts," said Drinan and opened 
for top full house.
meaning ace high was good for Zhou.
. The board ran out 
and Mahoney won the hand and doubled up.