The biggest event of the PokerStars Red Dragon Manila festival is here! The ₱110,000 Main Event features a guaranteed prize pool of ₱50,000,000 which is the Philippines' largest-ever guarantee and has three starting days. The first flight is Day 1a which starts at 1 p.m. local time. For all those competing in the Red Dragon Manila Main Event, the first Platinum Pass of 2020 for the PokerStars Players NL Hold'em Championship (PSPC) – held during EPT Barcelona 2020 – will be awarded on Day 2 on Wednesday, January 8.
All PokerStars online qualifiers for the Red Dragon Manila Main Event are eligible to win, regardless of whether or not they make the Day 2 cut, with the names of any eliminated added to the Day 2 table draw. A table will be picked randomly and all players present will then compete in a Flip Out where every player at the selected table is all-in for one hand, with the winner walking away with a Platinum Pass.
Worth over €26,000 (approximately $30,000), a Platinum Pass includes:
▪ Buy-in to the €22,500 PSPC 2020 event
▪ Six nights’ hotel accommodation for two in a five-star hotel
▪ Airport transfers
▪ Bespoke PSPC Merchandise
▪ €1,250 to cover expenses
▪ Platinum Pass winner experiences
But let's get back to the order of the day, the Main Event will play twelve levels of 40 minutes each on Day 1a and 1b. Day 1c is a turbo version with 20-minute levels. Players can reenter once per starting flight and get 30,000 in chips for their buy-in. The late registration period and reentry period closes at the start of Level 10 and a 15-minute break will take place after every two hours of play.
The Red Dragon Main Event once started as part of the Macau Poker Cup Series back in 2008 when poker in Macau was in its infancy with only 33 players entering the first-ever Red Dragon Main Event with a HK$10,000 buy-in at the Grand Waldo Hotel. Kenny Leong became the first dragon slayer, a title that came with HK$126,700 (US$16,242) as the top prize.
The Red Dragon Main Event has come a long way since then, setting the record for the largest freeze-out tournament ever held in the Asia Pacific Region multiple times. The Red Dragon still holds the current record, set during the September 2017 edition of the Main Event, which drew a staggering 1,308 runners and generated a HK$17,128,260 (US$2,189,058) prize pool, with China’s Qiuming Qin slaying the dragon for a HK$3,141,000 (US$401,432) payday.
Throughout the last 12 years, the Red Dragon Main Event has brought 30 champions forward, transitioning into the Red Dragon Series in November 2018 where the tournament switched from a freeze-out to a single re-entry per flight after making its first foray outside of Macau for the inaugural Jeju Red Dragon.
There are only two players who have managed to claim the Main Event title twice, with PokerStars ambassador Celina Lin and UK's Tom Alner the players in question.
Zhihao Zhang won the 2019 Red Dragon Jeju Main Event for ₩345,370,000 (appr. $295,000) two months ago while Florencio Campomanes took down the 2019 APPT Manila Main Event in August for ₱11,092,500 ($218,166) which was the biggest Main Event field in history to take place in the Philippines. The event had a buy-in of ₱65,000 and attracted 1,135 hopefuls. It remains to be seen how many people will show up in the Coral Lounge at the Okada Manila.
One thing is for sure, the PokerNews live reporting team will be there from start to end so make sure to keep reading the updates right here!
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Florencio CampomanesZhihao Zhang
