Welcome to Day 1a of the partypoker MILLION North America Main Event
The partypoker MILLION North America Main Event kicks off at 9 p.m. ET at partypoker with the first of its two online opening days. The tournament guarantees a huge CA$5,000,000 prize pool with at least CA$1,000,000 guaranteed to the winner for a CA$5,300/$4,000 buy-in.
The second and last online opening day will take place on April 30, followed by three live opening days on May 5-7 at the Playground Poker Club in Montreal, Canada. The tournament is guaranteed to produce the largest prize pool in Canadian live poker history.
Players buying into any of the opening days will start off with 1,000,000 chips and compete for 10 blind levels. However, those qualifying in via Phase 1 tournaments will start Day 1 with their ending chip stack from that tournament. Most of the players thus far in today's field have qualified into the tournament via this path.
Players can choose to play as many Day 1s as they wish. Any player bagging chips on multiple Day 1s will finish off the final three days of the tournament on May 8-10 with their largest stack. Players can also choose to late register on Day 2 up until the second blind level is completed.
Blinds increase every 24 minutes during the online opening days and every 60 minutes during the live opening days. The structure becomes deeper as play moves on with Day 2 and 3 featuring 75-minute blind levels and the final day featuring 90-minute blind levels.
"CanadianPharaoh" kicks off today's opening flight in the lead with 1,741,501 followed by Timothy "RandyB0bandy" Ulmer in second place with 1,618,662. Other notable players already registered include Joao "Azor_Ahai" Neves Jr, Toby "eightenclubs" Lewis and Toby "jesusneedsaces" Joyce.
The field currently stands at 17 players but stands to get bigger before the first cards are dealt with a $530 satellite currently running guaranteeing 20 seats to the event. Additionally, players can late-register up until the conclusion of the Level 6 and can reenter today's flight once.
Here is the online Day 1 level structure:
| Level | Duration | Small Blind | Big Blind | Ante |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 24 | 2,500 | 5,000 | 500 |
| 2 | 24 | 3,000 | 6,000 | 500 |
| 3 | 24 | 4,000 | 8,000 | 1,000 |
| 4 | 24 | 5,000 | 10,000 | 1,000 |
| 5 | 24 | 6,000 | 12,000 | 1,000 |
| 6 | 24 | 8,000 | 16,000 | 2,000 |
| 7 | 24 | 10,000 | 20,000 | 2,000 |
| 8 | 24 | 12,000 | 24,000 | 3,000 |
| 9 | 24 | 15,000 | 30,000 | 3,000 |
| 10 | 24 | 20,000 | 40,000 | 4,000 |
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