UK poker pro Dave Colclough, one of the most decorated and experienced players at the PokerStars Live Manila P1M Guarantee Main Event, came out way on top at the end of day 1a with 227,700 chips in his arsenal at bagging.

Colclough earned a massive stack when his [ad][kd] connected with a nut flush against a player with pocket tens and another with pocket kings. He climbed even further after winning two hefty pots near the end of the night to finish as the chip leader.

Out of the 28 players who survived the night, Colclough was the only player who crossed the 200k chip mark with the closest qualifier, Korea's In Sin, in second position with 161,300 chips.

The day got off to a quick start with many players taking to the felt early. By the end of late registration, there were 168 entries in the books, which brought the prize pool to over P720k. With today's turnout, it is very likely that by the starting round of tomorrrow's day 1b, the P1M guarantee will be crushed immediately.

Among those who also survived the day were USA's Seyedomid Hadipour with 147,400 chips, Filipino player Christopher Ortiz with 146,000 chips, and rounding out the top five was USA's Nicholas Hoyt with 134,800 chips. Hoyt had a dramatic finish to his day by cracking Canadian John Beveridge's [ad][ah] with a straight flush holding [td][4d]. Beveridge actually landed the nut flush but it just wasn't good enough to eliminate Hoyt on a crazy board of [jd][7d][ac][9d][8d].

Another day 1a survivor, Filipino player Edwin Marzan, had an exciting day at the felt when he railed three players sometime in the middle of the tournament. He flopped two pairs with his ten-nine offsuit, burning two overpairs (jacks and queens), and a player with a straight draw that failed to improve.

Without a doubt, there were other wild things happening at the felt, and Korea's Kim Young So caused quite a bit of them. If anyone could be accused of entering almost every hand and hardly ever folding, it definitely was So. In one of the hands, we saw him call a player's huge all in shove preflop while holding [3h][4h]. This sent a shockwave of disbelief to everyone at the table. He went on to win the hand with the board giving him two pairs. However, his luck did run out and he joined a number of players already on the rail.

The railbirds consisted of some notables such as Anniversary Special champion Jean Issa, Filipino poker pro Lester Edoc, NLH Megastack Freezeout winner James Mendoza, UK's Ben Abrahams, USA's Gerald Casey, Korea's Jae Chul Chang, Jae Wook Shin, and Soo Jo Kim, and India's Srinivas Polishetty to mention a few.

We will likely see many of these faces return to the felt tomorrow for day 1b, which begins at 12:30pm. For a read on some of the action of day 1a, head to the Day 1a updates post.