PokerStars Championship Debuts in Macau!
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The third leg of the inaugural PokerStars Championship got underway on Thursday 30 March. Running until 9 April the prestigious tour makes its debut in the PokerStars LIVE Macau poker room located at luxurious City of Dreams complex on Macau’s burgeoning Cotai Strip.
Featuring a packed schedule with events ranging from HK$1,100 (US$140) all the way up to the giddy heights of HK$400,000 (US$51,475) there are tournaments to suit all players and bankrolls.
PokerNews will be in Macau providing live coverage on the Main Event, High Roller, PLO High Roller and Single-Day High Roller. The Super High Roller will be covered exclusively by the PokerStars Blog, but we're there to provide you with feature stories from the floor as the tour progresses.
Here’s a look at some of the key events on the schedule:
| Event | Dates | Buy in |
|---|---|---|
| PokerStars National Championship: | March 30-April 3, 2017 | HK$8,800 (HK$2,000,000 guaranteed) |
| PokerStars Cup: | March 31-April 3, 2017 | HK$3,300 |
| PokerStars Championship Super High Roller Shot Clock: | April 1-3, 2017 | HK$400,000 |
| PokerStars Asia Open: | April 2-3, 2017 | HK$5,500 (HK$1,000,000 guaranteed) |
| PokerStars Championship Main Event: | April 3-9, 2017 | HK$42,400 |
| No Limit Hold’em - Shot Clock: | April 4, 2017 | HK$206,000 |
| PokerStars Championship PLO High Roller: | April 5-6, 2017 | HK$82,400 |
| PokerStars Championship High Roller: | April 7-9, 2017 | HK$103,000 |
| PokerStars Open: | April 7-9, 2017 | HK$2,200 |
There are dozens of other events planned and you can check out the full schedule here. There are cash games aplenty with stakes ranging from HK$25/50 (~US$3.25/6.50) all the way up to HK$200/400 (~US$25/50) and higher and we expect the action here to be as impressive as the tournament thrills on offer.
The HK$8,800 PokerStars National Championship is already well underway with Day 2 set to start at 5pm local time (GMT+7). This event has already attracted an impressive 708 runners so far with France’s Allan Tirel is leading the charge with 232,100 in chips, but with late registration open for the first level of Day 2 the field size could well increase further.
The highlight of the series so far (bearing in mind we are a scant three days in) is the fact that event #3, the HK$82,400 (~US$10,600) NL Hold’em Single Re-Entry, attracted a very respectable 94 entries (73 unique players plus 21 re-entries).
Just 10 players remain in contention for the HK$1,936,500 (~US$249,200) first prize with the top thirteen places making the money. Currently, Australian poker pro Michael ‘Imluckbox’ Addamo holds the chip lead, finishing Day 2 as the sole player to break the one-million chip-mark.
The Melbourne native boasts more than $620,000 in live tournament earnings with his biggest career score coming back in the 2016 WSOP in one of the $1,500 NLHE events where he finished third for $196,202.
While this represents Addamo’s only six-figure live cash the Australian is also a prolific online player playing under the handle ‘Imluckbox’ on PokerStars where he took down the SCOOP-05-H: $700 NL Hold’em 6-Max Event last year for a cool $142,465.
Should Addamo maintain his momentum when play resumes at 1pm local time he will guarantee himself a career tournament high, though with 2012 Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year Dan Smith hot on his heels with 863,000 as the second biggest stack it will certainly not be easy.
Super High Roller
By far the biggest attraction of the day will be the massive HK$400,000 Super High Roller which is scheduled to start at 12:30pm local time.
Boasting 60-minute levels, a 250,000-chip starting stack and unlimited re-entries the sky is the limit for those with deep enough pockets. The tournament has a 30-second shot clock meaning players have just half a minute to make their decision, though it is worth noting that all players start with three time bank chips, each worth an additional minute of time. Once these are used up players will not receive any more so quick decision-making will be the order of the day.
So far there are 21 confirmed entries including Isaac Haxton, Sergio Aido and Sam Greenwood to name but a few but we expect this figure to grow as the day progresses as many of the remaining players in the HK$82,400 have expressed interest in playing.
You won't find any live updates and chip counts on PokerNews.com today, we'll leave that to the PokerStars Blog. Our partners in crime have a battalion of reporters ready to cover each and every step of all the players in today's event. So head over to PokerStars Blog for live updates and chip counts.
Today we’ll be focusing our attention on the big stories in Macau with a series of features on the Super High Roller and the PokerStars Championship’s first visit out East so stay tuned.