For most people these days, it's hard to remember a time when there wasn't a Sunday Million. Some of 2016's best players hadn't even hit puberty when the Sunday Million first appeared ten years ago.

Now, the world's biggest weekly tournament is about to celebrate ten years of changing lives.

As that celebration gets ready to kick off, PokerStars thought it would be fun to take a look back at the decade-long journey of the Sunday Million.

At that link above, you'll get a full look back at ten years of Sundays. You'll see where all of the champions came from, who has more than one title, and the biggest prize pools in Sunday Million history.

You can see it all right here at the The Decade-long Journey of the Sunday Million.

Enjoy!

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.

If a PokerStars weekend was a diet fad, it wouldn't be one to get you healthy any time soon. Let' face facts. We don't do kale, we do treats. We don't do moderation, we binge. And while this weekend promises a meat and two vegetables kind of menu, we made sure to throw in cake and ice cream along the way. We're like your favourite uncle.

I can't promise this dubious analogy won't reappear below, but let me explain.

First off let' get the formalities out of the way. You'll find everything you usually find taking place this weekend. That means all the weekend majors and the Sunday Million to cap it all off. Last weekend that went to CantWinAFlip who despite brazenly misleading us with his username took a first prize of $174,951.74 to headline the weekend.

Whatever the current size of your bank roll there's plenty that will satisfy even the modest competitive urge, and there are satellites to get you a seat to the big ones for a fraction of the prize. Open up the PokerStars client, find the tournament lobby and enjoy having a look around.

Talking of the Sunday Million....

Sunday Million tenth anniversary

We're now just a week away from what could turn out to be the biggest Sunday Million ever held. It's the tenth anniversary so we've kept the numbers simple: A prize pool of $10 million and $1 million to the winner.

In terms of structure everything remains the same, but we've made a couple of temporary tweaks. The buy in is still $215 but if you're knocked out within the first three hours of play (before registration closes) you can re-enter up to three times. Whether that promotes prudence or recklessness remains to be seen, but either way it will be quite the event. Win it and you'll be telling your grandchildren about it.

You can get details on the Sunday Million Tenth Anniversary homepage, along with information on how to qualify. You'll also find details of various bonus codes to take advantage of that will earn you a freeroll ticket. It's one thing to turn $215 into $1 million, something else entirely to do the same with $0.

$1,000,000 Freeroll

That's not the only guarantee we're making right now. This week we announced details of the first $1 million freeroll on PokerStars, which takes place a day before the Sunday Million Anniversary, on Saturday March 19 at 13:04 ET.

Entry is open to every real money player on PokerStars, although you have to qualify first.

To do that you must enter one of our 90-player Sit & Go qualifiers, which are running around the clock. From each Sit & Go the top nine players will advance, with the freeroll itself capped at 100,000 players.

To get a ticket simply open your Challenges window and opt-in. To release your ticket just play one hand of real money poker - at any stakes, and in either a cash game or a tournament. If you miss out first time round you can get a second ticket by depositing $20 or more using the bonus code "MILLION1". Get all the details of that event on the Freeroll homepage.

Results

It proved a week for appropriate and inappropriate names. First there was CantWinAFlip in the Sunday Million, who won flips, and more to take the title. It seems only wise to counsel against taking on players with usernames like "humblepiemmmm" or "OhFFS101!" this weekend.

Of course in the real world people play it straight. Who knows if somewhere in the poker world there are struggling players called Trevor Weak, Pete Passive or Lionel Loose. But there is a Rodrigo Strong, and he won the LAPT Chile this week for $120,565.

Jack Stanton and Will O'Connor were on hand to watch his show of strength, and their reports and updates are well worth a read even if we just spoiled it by telling you the result.

While the LAPT might eclipse the Eureka Main Event in Rozvadov for prize money, in terms of a story it nudged them at the line.

That was thanks to Ivan Luca's victory in the Main Event. There's no doubting the immense talent of Luca, a regular high roller and bracelet winner from last year. But this time it was not the win that caught the imagination exactly, but his heads up opponent - his girlfriend Maria Lampropoulos.

I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite like this in ten years covering poker. In the old days of the EPT Patrick Antonius was once moved to another table after his wife was moved to a vacant seat opposite. That's not really a practical policy at a final table.

But in this case any such problems were pushed aside by the unique story of a great final table, told in typically compelling style by our man Nick Wright, whose reports you can read here. It's also worth mentioning that, in an age where it seems everyone is entitled to get involved in a winner's photo; Luca's win produced the most genuine one we've seen for a long time.

Rozvadov winner Ivan Luca with his girlfriend (and runner-up) Maria Lampropoulos

Grand Final

Luca and Lampropoulos will be likely contenders at the EPT Grand Final, still some six weeks away. But while that's still a ways off, the business of winning seats to the season finale has already started, and in fantastic style.

As we wrote earlier this week a seat to the EPT Grand Final Main Event costs €5,300, but any number of our satellites can slash that price. Now though, our new Spin & Go promotion will slash the price to as little as €10, and the time it takes to win it to a matter of minutes.

We launched this promo yesterday and already eight players have booked their ticket to Monaco. Remember that each package is worth €9,000. That includes your main event seat, accommodation for you and a guest at the Monte Carlo Bay Resort, as well as travel expenses. For €10 and ten minutes of your time, it's the best ticket in town, and you have until April 10 to give it a spin... so to speak.

EPT Not Live

While there is no EPT Live to keep us busy this month you get more form the #EPTNotLive team. We'll let those guys tell you what's in store this week...

"Joe Stapleton is in the closet. Literally. He whispers his way through the show, as he broadcasts from his temporary "home" in Los Angeles. The boys kick things off with a major Social Media Beef, before breaking down the first two episodes of the EPT 11 Grand Final (available to watch at pokerstars.tv). These TV shows feature a random Craig David gag, and showcase the talents of Ole Schemion, Maria Ho and Ludovic Geilich - who was booked to appear as the guest on this week's podcast, but never showed up. There's a reminder of the Club ID and Invitation Code for the #EPTLive Home Game Club, plus a preview of the UKIPT London festival, before Lucas Summers demonstrates his knowledge of 'Back to the Future' in 'Superfan vs Stapes'. #EPTNotLive"

Listen to #EPTNotLive on the relevant links below:

http://www.soundcloud.com/eptnotlive
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/ept-not-live/id970248920?mt=2
http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ept-not-live

So let's see now... that's $10 million guaranteed in the Anniversary Sunday Million next weekend, a $1 million freeroll next week, and a Grand Final package worth €9,000 for €10. That is a lot of cake and ice cream. But what the hell, it's worth it.

Play well on PokerStars this weekend. As always send any thoughts and comments to us on Twitter: @PokerStarsBlog.

Action is underway at the PokerStars Live Manila poker room at City of Dreams Manila for day 1a of the P1M Guarantee Main Event. They will be playing a total of 16 levels with late registration / re-entries open for half of that. Blind duration is 30 minutes. For those looking to get in, buy-in is P5,000. We will be posting random updates on some of the action on the floor as well as some of the chip counts as we get closer to the end of the day.

3:00PM: Notables at the felt

The cards are in the air, play has begun, and already the numbers are climbing with over 100 entries punched in. Among those at the felt are Gerald Casey, Jae Chang, In Shin, SJ Kim, Srinivas Polishetty, Regie Ann Delos Reyes, Richard Marquez, Martin Corpuz, and Mike Kim Enriquez.

We are back at PokerStars Live Manila for the poker room's second event of the year, the P1M Guarantee poker festival. The festivities kicked off on Tuesday March 8 at City of Dreams Manila, and will run until Sunday March 13, 2016. Today begins day 1a of the P1M Guarantee Main Event with a buy-in fee of P5,000 and unlimited re-entries for four hours. They will be playing a total of 16 levels, with each round of blinds escalating every 30 minutes. We will have random updates on the action at the felt. While that gets underway, here is a review of the results of the past day's side events.

NLH P200,000 Guarantee

The first side event was the NLH P200,000 Guarantee with a buy-in of P2,000. There were a total of 170 entries filling up the tables all afternoon, easily surpassing the guarantee. By night's end, it was a heads up battle between two Filipino players, Joseph Sia and Alexander Ungria with Sia holding a dominating lead. Sia went on to defeat Ungria to claim the first place cash prize of P66,400 plus a seat worth P25,000 to the upcoming Manila Megastack 5 in May.

NLH P300,000 Guarantee

On Wednesday, the NLH P300,000 Guarantee saw a similar turnout as the first side event with 169 entries in the books. This event also swelled passed the guarantee bringing it to P426,218. In the end, it was another Filipino player who claimed the trophy, Rommel Angeles, after defeating Chinese player Xiaolong He at the heads up round. Angeles earned himself a sweet cash prize of P97,918 plus a seat to the MM5. Although the runner-up claimed a lesser cash prize of P65,900, he was also awarded a seat to the MM5.

NLH Megastack Freezeout

At yesterday's festivities, the NLH Megastack Freezeout turned up XXX players each paying the P5,000 entry fee. This created a prize pool of P332,904. When it was down to one table, there were several different nationalities battling it out for the top prize worth P108,100 which included a seat to the MM5. Despite the efforts of a few Singaporeans, Filipinos, and Taiwanese, heads up was between James Mendoza from the USA and Shin Haeng Lee from Korea. Mendoza got the best of Lee and bagged the trophy and all the first place perks.

Deep Stack Hyper-Turbo Freezeout

There will be another side event on the schedule today, the Deep Stack Hyper-Turbo Freezeout. Buy-in is P5,000 and will begin at 9pm. Late registration is available for one hour.