We have completed the last two flights of the PokerStars Live Manila Anniversary Special Main Event and what a big turnout it was with 99 entries for day 1d and 171 entries for day 1e. This easily surpassed the guarantee, bringing the prize pool to a healthy P2,279,828.

Day 1d was the first to finish off with only 12 players making the cut. Filipino player Pedro Gutierrez came out on top with 213,000 chips. Gutierrez was already holding a large stack midway through the event and further escalated when his king-jack landed a dominating two pair in a four-way all in. Gutierrez was trailed by two PokerStars Live Manila regulars, Jean G. Issa from the United Kingdom with 180,000 chips and Nickolai Alexandrov from the USA with 177,000 chips. Both of these players had some late runs to bring their stack up to where they ended the day.

Other players who bagged up chips with the flight leaders were USA's Gerald Casey, India's Srinivas Polishetty, and Hong Kong player Alan King Lun Lau.

On the last flight of the Main Event, day 1e, the massive turnout saw many players fall by the wayside leaving only 27 out of 171 entries at bagging. Ruling the flight was Filipino player Jenelee Dizon with 267,000 chips. Dizon scooped a massive pile near the end of the day when her pocket jacks bested pocket tens. Coming in second-in-chips was Filipino pro Mike Takayama with 199,000 chips, and rounding out the top three was Filipino player Christopher Runas with 181,000 chips.

There were quite a number of exciting hands and situations all day. We were able to catch some of those and they are posted in the updates posts. The prize pool was also announced tonight with the top 50 players out of the 76 qualifiers seeing a profit. The top ten eventual placers will all receive a seat worth P25k to the Megastack Manila Main Event 5 with first place earning the largest piece of the cash pie of P461,600. Day 2 will resume promptly at 12:15pm tomorrow.

For a read on all the action today, click on Day 1d updates and Day 1e updates.

Chip Counts:
Day 1d Survivors: 12
Pedro Gutierrez - Philippines - 213K
Jean G. Issa - UK - 180K
Nickolai Alexandrov - USA - 177K
Takaaki Hagiwara - Japan - 164K
Keith Robert Gorman - UK - 127K
William Gordon Mcauley - Canada - 122K
Gerald Casey - USA - 117K
Miki Teranishi - Japan - 112K
Ronald Morfe- Philippines - 78K
Srinivas Polishetty - India - 73K
King Lun Alan Lau - Hong Kong - 61K
Tarmo Oskari Petajajarvi - Sweden - 61K

Day 1e Survivors: 27
Jenelee Dizon - Philippines - 267K
Mike Takayama - Philippines - 199K
Christopher Runas - Philippines - 181K
Alexander Ungria Jr. - Philippines - 139K
Alvir Inocentes - Philippines - 136K
Tae Kyung Kim - Korea - 132K
Renato Pacayra - Philippines - 110K
Jay Lapinid - Philippines - 105K
Wyngard Brillo - Philippines - 93K
George Martel - Philippines - 92.5K
Roque Lima - Philippines - 90.5K
Jan Jason Leoncio - Philippines - 88K
Ryan Peter Malangen - Philippines - 87K
Kazuki Sasaki - Japan -85K
Antonio Abesamis - Philippines - 83K
Nicholas Gorman - USA - 73K
Aristotle Sigua - Philippines - 69.5K
Eduard Sato - USA - 69K
Darwin Santelices - Philippines - 64.5K
Vincent Miranda - Philippines - 60.5K
Joven Mente - Philippines -59.5K
Ginbert De Villa - Philippines - 59.5K
Na Young - Korea - 57.5K
George Aquino - Philippines - 57K
Kichae Jun - Korea - 56K
Jerick Borja - Philippines - 37.5K
Hakju Lee - Korea - 19K