The final table is almost set!

Well, at least it will be by the end of the day.

The 23 remaining players have now returned to the poker room and will be cut down to six before play concludes.

They've all guaranteed themselves at least a HK$217,000 (~$28,000) payday, but will be chasing the healthy HK$5,885,000 (~$760,000) first-place prize when we crown a champion tomorrow.

Also up for grabs are coveted APOY leader board points. Current second place in the APOY hunt KC Wong and fourth place Yuguang Li still have stacks, and with the leader Alan King Lun Lau eliminated on Day 1, the Asia Player of the Year race is very much alive.

They'll have to get through the chip leader going into Day 4 here, Connor Drinan. The American crushed the competition yesterday and accumulated 861,000 in chips to bring back today. Drinan propelled himself to the lead after finding pocket aces and getting all the chips in against Alexander Kuzmin with pocket tens and Chen Wang with ace-king. The aces would hold to see Drinan eclipse 700,000 before finishing off the day after scooping even more pots.

The only player still flying the flag for Team PokerStars is Mikhail 'innerpsy' Shalamov. The Online Pro found a double up in the dying stages last night but still starts the day second-last in chips with an even 100,000. With the blinds starting at 4,000/8,000 and a 1,000 ante, Shalamov will be looking to run it up and make a run at this ACOP final table.

Also among those still alive are APPT Macau Main Event champion Tony Cheng (835,000), Steve O'Dwyer (174,000), Christoph Vogelsang (228,000), Russell Thomas (141,000), Tom Alner (341,000) and Matthew Wakeman (126,000).

There is no set play-time today as we aim to finish up with six players, but the estimate is around six levels of action. That means we'll conclude roughly around midnight just like last night.

And while the Main Event is nearing the end of the tournament, the ACOP Super High Roller will be just beginning at 6pm tonight. The HK$500,000 buy-in is expected to attract some notable names and with two rebuys allowed, predictions are that the prize pool will be huge.

We'll have more on the Super High Roller throughout the day, as well as all the Main Event action. Be sure to stay with us for another great day of poker here in Macau!

We're in the money!

And we're drawing close to crowning an ACOP Main Event champion and awarding the HK$5,885,000 (~$759,000) first place prize.

The ACOP Players Party was over and it was back to business today at PokerStars LIVE Macau. The day started with a charity tournament in the poker room* before the Main Event got back into full swing.

Only 23 players now remain after another six levels of play. It was an action-packed day before things almost grinded to a halt as the bubble approached. Those still in the hunt were desperately trying to lock up a HK$193,000 (~$24,900) payday.

The bubble finally burst in a hand that saw Andy Chan make an ill-timed jam. The action folded around to him and he pushed for his last 81,000 in chips. Sergey Lebedev looked down at [kh][qh] in the big blind and made the call. Chan was clearly frustrated with his [qd][9s] dominated and the prospect of bubbling likely. The board would come down [th][6c][6s][ac][2h] and Chan would find the exit one shy of a return on his investment.

We would then see four more eliminations before play concluded. One of those was Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang who failed to win a flip against Raymond Wu. Huang's fellow teammate Isaac Haxton also hit the rail earlier in the day, leaving Mikhail Shalamov as the lone survivor for the PokerStars Pros. Shalamov will return tomorrow as the second shortest stack with an even 100,000.

One who isn't struggling in the stack department, however, is our new chip leader Connor Drinan. The American was enjoying a wine or six but that didn't stop him from amassing 861,000 throughout the day. Drinan already has some impressive live results to his name, the biggest of which for $3,225,000 when he finished 3rdmin the Super High Roller Ball earlier this year.

Hot on Drinan's heels is the reigning APPT Macau Main Event champion Tony Cheng who bagged up 835,000 in chips. And closing out the podium is the USA's Patrick Mahoney who will take 820,000 into Day 4.

Tom Alner (341,000), Yuguang Li (249,000), Christoph Vogelsang (228,000), Thomas Ward (195,000), Steve O'Dwyer (174,000), Raymond Wu (163,000), Russell Thomas (141,000) and Matthew Wakeman (126,000).

ACOP Main Event Day 3 Top Ten

Connor Drinan (Mexico) - 861,000
Tony Yat Wai Cheng (Hong Kong) - 835,000
Patrick Mahoney (USA) - 820,000
Qi Luo (China) - 515,000
Paul Tedeschi (France) - 490,000
Sergey Lebedev (Russia) - 486,000
Shunu Zang (China) - 443,000
Tom Alner (UK) - 341,000
Zhou Zhou (China) - 334,000
Nan Tu (China) - 293,000

Now players will rest up before the penultimate day tomorrow. Then we'll see 23 become six for our official final table. Be sure to join us as we push towards crowning a new champion!

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure has a history of trying out new tournaments. Think back to the Battleships event or that weird one where Chris Moneymaker sat in between tables "multi-tabling" in real life.

Well festival organisers have done it again this year with a $100,000 guaranteed blackjack tournament, with cash and a seat into the PCA Main Event to the winner.

Each player starts with 10,000 chips and plays a round of 15 hands at their table. There are three rounds in total, with the winner of each table in round one advancing to round two. The tournament plays out in a single day with prize money determined by the number of entries.

So, if you're interested in doubling down on fun at the poker table with a little fun off it, this might be just the thing. The Blackjack event plays out on Friday January 8, 2016, the same day as Day 1A of the Main Event. Win it and they'll be a seat waiting for you on Day 1B.

For more information check out the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure homepage.

Before Day 3 of the ACOP Main Event kicked off this afternoon it was a fun-filled tournament for charity that stole the show here at PokerStars LIVE Macau.

Ronaldo was back to the felt, as were Team PokerStars Pros Kosei Ichinose and Aditya Agarwal. Also joining them was our Main Event Day 2 chip leader Yuguang Li as part of the 28-player charity tournament field.

It was three big donations to the charity of the players' choice at stake, with PokerStars giving HK$250,000, HK$150,000 and $HK100,000 to good causes on behalf of the podium finishers.

Third place ultimately went to Takuya Suzuki who nominated the Fuhong Society of Macau for the prize money. The organisation supports the disabled by offering caring service and job opportunities. A relatively new charity, the Fuhong Society of Macau earned HK$100,000 for Suzuki's efforts.

Second place went to Philip Wang who chose Anima to receive the funds. Founded in 2003, Anima aims to develop Macau as a role model community with regard to the awareness and prevention of animal cruelty and neglect. For Wang's second place finish Anima earred HK$150,000 to help the cause.

And in the end it was Team PokerStars Pro Celina Lin who rose to the top and emerged as the charity event champion. She took to Twitter to share the news with her followers.

"Won the @Ronaldo charity event #2015ACOP ! Thanks to @PokerStarsMacau for donating HKD$250k to my chosen charity" read the tweet.

Lin selected the Macau Children Development Association for the HK$250,000 first place prize. The MCDA is a non-profit association that aims to "help all children in Macau to grow into healthy, productive, and happy adults - especially children with developmental and communication disorders."

The charity works with children suffering from autism, ADHD, dyslexia and dysgraphia among others and will undoubtedly benefit from the generous donation on Lin's behalf.

But now that the charity event has wrapped up, the focus is back to the Main Event here. We're currently five hours into Day 3 with 34 players remaining. We'll see who can survive to the penultimate day tomorrow and in the meantime you can follow all the action at the top of the main ACOP page right here on the PokerStars Blog!

It's a comfortable 25 degrees Celsius here in Macau tonight but on the poker tables things are really heating up.

Day 3 is underway and while it's still early we've already seen chips flying.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the action so far is American Connor Drinan. He made headlines last year when his pocket aces were cracked by pocket aces in the Big One for One Drop $1 million buy-in event but he seems to be running a lot better in this ACOP Main Event.

Drinan scored a huge double up in the early stages of play to position himself as one of our chip leaders. The hand saw Jiaxiu Liu raise to 5,500 from middle position before Drinan in the small blind and the player in the big blind made the call. The flop landed [Jh][2d][9d] and after two checks Liu continued with a bet. Drinan raised it up for a little more and with the big blind out of the way, Liu decided to call.

The dealer turned the [5s] and after considering his options, Drinan barrelled for 25,000. Liu committed the chips and players saw the [7s] river. It was then that Drinan announced all in for around 95,000 which sent Liu deep into the tank. After several minutes consideration Liu opted for a call before Drinan tabled [jd][jc] for top set. Liu tapped the table and sent over half of his chips Drinan's way.

Another player making the most of today is New Zealander Thomas Ward. Just two hours into the action Ward had already more than tripled his starting stack from 105,400 to 346,100. It was mostly two big hands responsible for his upswing. The first saw Ward score a double up through Billy 'The Croc' Argyros with [Ks][Kh] against the [As][Kc] of the Australian. Ward faded danger on the [3c][4h][jh][jd][5c] run out to stay alive and scoop a big pot.

The second hand would see Ward send Shawn Buchanan to the rail after a preflop confrontation. Buchanan three-bet jammed for around 35,000 over Ward's open who called to put his opponent at risk.

Ward: [Ah][Qs]
Buchanan: [Kh][Jh]

Ward was ahead and would stay that way as the board came down [kc][ac][7h][6c][3h] to see Buchanan eliminated and Ward continue to climb.

We've just reached Level 15 now and blinds have increased to 1,500/3,000 with a 500 chip ante. We'll be keeping an eye on Drinan and Ward's progress along with the remaining 55 players here.

Stay with us!

Let's go!

Day 3 has just kicked off here at PokerStars LIVE Macau for the ACOP Main Event.

The 65 returning players will be chasing the HK$5,885,000 (~US$760,000) top prize along with the prestigious title and Asia Player of the Year points.

The frontrunner coming into the day is none other than Macau legend Yuguang Li. He achieved that status back in March when won the MPC22 Red Dragon and the High Roller event only days apart. That stellar showing netted him just shy of HK$3.5 million (~$450,000) and he'll be after another huge score here this week.

Li bagged up 440,300 in chips when all was said and done last night, well out in front of second spot Zhou Zhou on 294,400. Time will tell if he'll continue to steamroll the competition today or whether a new chip boss will emerge.

Also still in contention are three of the Team PokerStars representatives. Mikhail Shalamov leads them into Day 3 with 161,400 ahead of Isaac Haxton (77,200) and Bryan Huang (54,300). We'll see if any of them can survive through to Day 4 tomorrow and make a run at the ACOP Main Event title.

Joining them at the tables this afternoon are Billy 'The Croc' Argyros (261,300), Patrick Mahoney (185,300), Christoph Vogelsang (127,100), Huidong Gu (113,500), Thomas Ward (105,400), Stephen Zhou (71,400), Jordan Westmorland (69,000) and shortstack Wei Zhang (23,000).

Today will prove to be longer for those who survive the action. We're scheduled for nine hours of play with a 40-minute dinner break after the fourth blind level. That means Day 3 will conclude just after midnight local time.

Play resumes with blinds at 1,000/2,000 and a 300 ante while the average stack sits at 120,000 in chips. The 65 remaining runners are already in the thick of things now as APPT President Danny McDonagh does a lap around the tournament floor and gives some colourful commentary of proceedings.

A few of those players will be fighting hangovers today, with last night's ACOP Party going into the early hours of the morning. We'll have more on that later as well as all the stories from on and off the felt. Also be sure to check out the PokerNews team's live reporting coverage at the top of the main ACOP page.

Stay tuned!

Once a year the world looks in the direction of the Nevada desert and salutes the winner of the World Series of Poker Main Event. That day is today, and the winner is Joe McKeehen.

McKeehen, 24, from Philadelphia, won $7,683,000 last night after the final session of play at the Penn & Teller theatre at the Rio All Suites Hotel, in front of thousands of spectators.

World Series of Poker Main Event Champion Joe McKeehen

With all but three of the 6,420 players already sent to the rail, including Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu -- who came within touching distance of the final himself, finishing 11th -- McKeehen, Joshua Beckley, and Neil Blumenfield played on to a winner, ultimately finishing in that order.

In the best sense the November Nine is a pure celebration of poker, what with extravagance and often sublime demonstrations of skill. Then there was the spirit in which the final was played, summed up best by Federico Butteroni. The Italian departed in eighth place but celebrated like a man rescued after months stranded on a desert island. The $1,097,056 prize money no doubt helped.

But it will be McKeehen, perched with his bracelet behind bricks of dollars bills, who provides the defining image -- glanced at during the morning commute, and watched during the "and finally..." slot on the evening news. Either way many people, poker fans and those new to the game, might just pause for a second, if only to ask themselves "what if?"

So as McKeehen rightly basks in the limelight, so too by extension does the game itself. We can all take satisfaction in that.

Congratulations to McKeehen, and all the November Niners, on a great finale to the Main Event.

157 made it to Day 2. 92 of them won't be able to say the same for Day 3.

Today was host to five 90-minute levels at PokerStars LIVE Macau, finishing up just in time for the ACOP Players Party. Late registration ended after the first level this afternoon as the remaining poker hopefuls found out that they were playing for a HK$5,885,000 (~US$760,000) top prize.

At the start of play it was Japan's Yasuhiro Ojiri who led the pack but when chips were bagged up tonight that honour went to Yuguang Li. He had a great day on the felt and ran his stack up to a monstrous 440,300.

Li is notorious in Macau after a whirlwind couple of days back in March. His achievement went down in history after he topped the 987-runner MPC22 Red Dragon for HK$1,848,000 ($238,000) before jumping in the High Roller and shipping that too for HK$1,647,000 ($219,000). Maintaining a dominant chip advantage going into Day 3 here Li looks primed for another impressive finish.

Also among the action was a strong Australian presence with 15 of the nation's players pulling up seats for Day 2. When all was said and done only five would remain. Billy 'The Croc' Argyros leads the way on 261,300 followed by Michael Addamo (227,200), Victor Hon (77,900), David Wang (55,900) and Matthew Wakeman (48,600).

The Team PokerStars contingent was also out in force today. Seven went in but only three survived. Mikhail Shalamov leads that pack with 161,400 ahead of Isaac Haxton with 77,200 and Bryan Huang on 54,300.

Still in the hunt and returning tomorrow for Day 3 are Andy Andrejevic (159,600), Christoph Vogelsang (127,100), Tom Alner (119,800), Raymond Wu (113,200), Connor Drinan (112,200), Russell Thomas (109,200), Daniel Demicki (97,300), Erik Seidel (96,800) and Steve O'Dwyer (47,600).

Here's how the frontrunners from today stack up.

ACOP Main Event Day 2 Top Ten

Yuguang Li (China) - 440,300
Zhou Zhou (China) - 294,400
Tony Yat Wai Cheng (Hong Kong) - 288,500
Zhengye Yao (China) - 266,300
Billy Argyros (Australia) - 261,300
Ningdan Shi (China) - 254,000
Michael Addamo (Australia) - 227,200
Shunu Zang (China) - 207,100
Peiran Liu (China) - 201,000
Patrick Mahoney (USA) - 185,300

For others though it was a different story with a horde of notables falling by the wayside today. Daniel Neilson, John Juanda, Andrew Hinrichsen, Martin Kozlov, Sam Higgs, Dario Sammartino, Anton Astapau, Tom Alner, Pratyush Buddiga, Joe Hachem, Stevan Chew and Xuan Liu were all among those who hit the rail on Day 2.

That's all the poker action here for tonight. It's now time for the ACOP Players Party - that means either celebratory or commiseration drinks depending on how each player fared today. We'll let you know all about it tomorrow right here on the PokerStars Blog. Thanks for joining today's coverage and we hope to see you again!

Late registration is locked out!

The field is capped at 260 entrants and with that we can reveal what everyone will be playing for.

First place will be an impressive HK$5,885,000 (~US$760,000) from a total prize pool of HK$24,206,000 (~US$3,120,000). On top of this huge chunk of change the eventual champion will also guarantee themselves a HK$100,000 (~US$13,000) seat into the 2016 ACOP Main Event!

Of the 260 runners it'll be 27 who see a payday. When the bubble bursts the remaining players will lock up at least HK$193,000 (~US$25,000).

You can find the full prize list at PokerNews but here's how the payouts on the official final table of six will look.

2015 ACOP Final Table Payouts

1st - HK$5,885,000 (~US$760,000)
2nd - HK$3,736,000 (~US$482,000)
3rd - HK$2,411,000 (~US$311,000)
4th - HK$1,928,000 (~US$249,000)
5th - HK$1,519,000 (~US$196,000)
6th - HK$1,205,000 (~US$155,000)

Since play began this afternoon the starting field of 157 has been thinned dramatically. We've already lost about a third of those who returned for Day 2, including a few of the more notable names.

Team PokerStars Pros Aditya Agarwal, Yaxi Zhu and Vivian Im all found the exit this afternoon, as did Joe Hachem, Terrence Chan and Xuan Liu.

Joining them on the rail was poker legend John Juanda after a big river bluff was picked off in a recent hand. The reigning EPT Barcelona champion found himself in a bloated pot against Alexander Kuzmin with the board reading [9c][5c][3c][tc][Qs].

Juanda pushed all in first to act with a close-to-pot sized jam of 42,100. Kuzmin who had enough to cover Juanda went into the tank, but after several minutes he committed to a call before players tabled their hands.

"You got it" conceded Juanda pointing at his opponent and flipping over [Qd][Js] for a rivered top pair on the four-flush board. Kuzmin revealed [Ad][Jc] for the fourth nuts which was enough to send Juanda packing.

"Sick call" added tablemate Jordan Westmorland as Juanda exited the tournament area.

For those still in contention, however, it's all business as the night lingers on. They now know what they're playing for and will all be hoping to hang on until Day 3 tomorrow.

We'll have a full recap of today's action and a showcase of the chip leaders later tonight. In the meantime the team at PokerNews has all your live reporting needs covered - you can follow the live feed at the top of the main ACOP page.

Stay with us!