We are back at the PokerStars Live Manila poker room at City of Dreams Manila awaiting the start of day 1a of the P1 Million Guarantee Main Event. This will be the third and last edition of this event for the year. Buy-in for the event is P5,000. This is a re-entry tournament so players can get back in the game if they find themselves on the rail early. Players should be happy to know that in addition to the first place cash prize, a P100,000 Macau Poker Cup package will be awarded to the eventual winner.

The previous P1 Million Guarantee Main Event winners were Rey Concepcion (May) and Wally Sombero (July), well-known poker veterans from the Philippines. Let's see if they will make their way to the felt today and try to bag another one.

The P1 Million Guarantee series began two days ago with a P200,000 NLH side event. There were a total of 168 entries with fifteen of them seeing the money. By the end of the night, it was heads up between two local players, David Erquiaga and Danilo Munoz, after Ka Cheong Wong from Hong Kong was eliminated in third place. Erquiaga would eventually get the best of Munoz to claim the first win of the series and the PHP70,500.

Last night saw another local winner, Alvir Innocentes. Innocentes bested a field of 123 entries at the P300,000 NLH side event and took home the PHP78,000 first place cash prize.

Among those who made the money in the first two events, local player Antonio Abesamis was running hot and impressively saw a profit in both. Abesamis placed 7th in the first event and 5th in the second event. We will surely keep an eye on him if he attends the main event today.

Another player seeing the money this series was King Lun "Alan" Lau (Hong Kong) who is currently in second position at the Asia Player of the Year 2015 leader board. Only a very small margin of points separates him and first position player Ka Cheong Wong (Hong Kong). Fourth position player Yang Zhang (China) also cashed, however fifth position player Pete Chen, from Chinese Taipei, was not so fortunate.

We will be posting updates of some of the action throughout the day so stay tuned!

Good luck to all the players!

IPT7 Malta back in March was the biggest ever in the tour's season-season history when 1,285 players helped create a €1,246,450 prize pool. Georgios Zisimopoulos beat them all and took away €142,205 for his first place. The Greek player has cashed for over $650,000 in his career and has come back to defend his title.

His Malta festival got off to a great start last night when he came second to Team PokerStars Pro Matthias De Meulder in thee €550 NL Hyper Turbo for €7,480. The blog spent an orbit at his table to see how his defence was panning out.

Hand 1. Zisimopoulos was straight into the action and was heads up with Patryk Poterek. The flop was out and read [9d][9h][ac]. Zisimopoulos bet 1,200 and his Polish opponent folded.

Hand 2. Yury Gulyy, a well-known Russian player who have played the poker circuit for many years, moved all in for 9,000 from mid position and took the blinds and antes.

Hand 3. Alberto Borsoi received a walk in the big blind.

Hand 4. Zisimopoulos opened to 2,500 (bb 1,000) and won the pot uncontested.

Hand 5. Zisimopoulos opened to 2,500 once more and called after Poterek three-bet to 5,200 from the next seat. Call. The flop fanned [4c][3c][9h] and Zisimopoulos check-called 4,800 before he check-folded to a 17,600 all in move from Poterek on the [qc] turn.

Hand 6. Zisimopoulos came in with another raise to 2,500 but folded after Viktor Georgiev Lyuzkanov moved all in for 13,300 from the button.

Hand 7. For the fourth hand in row, Zisimopoulos opened to 2,500 and Ricardo Alvarado peeled from the big blind to see a [qd][qc][ad] flop. Zisimopoulos continued for 2,200 and called after Alvarado check-raised to 6,300. The turn was the [3s] and Alvarado led for 8,000. Zisimopoulos took his time and then flicked in the call. On the [3s] river, Alvarado quickly checked and then snap folded when Zisimopoulos set him in for his last 14,000.

Hand 8. Lyuzkanov made a mid position raise and took the blinds and antes.

Hand 9. Gully moved all in once more and found no customers.

All-in-all it was a good, profitable orbit for the defending champion. The table was broken soon after the orbit and Zisimopoulos took 69,000 chips with him, good for an above average stack worth 69 big blinds.

Main Event at large

There are twomore levels left in the night and 342 players remain with an average stack of 52,500 chips. The current top five stacks are:

1. Denis Strebkov (Russia), 185,000
2. Giuseppe Zarbo (Italy), 180,000
3. Danut Chisu (France), 165,000
4. Georges Rmaily (Lebabon) 163,000
5. Alberto Lapena (Spain) 150,000

Those we have loved include: Team PokerStars Pro Marcin Korecki, Andrea Benelli, Gianluca Speranza, Mayu Toma, Tobias Peters, Ben Dobson, Ari Engel, Adam Owen, Joao Ferreira, Kimmo Kurko, Jonas Lauck, Simeon Naydenov, Ilan Boujenah and Elena Stover.

For full details of the tournaments on offer, and when you can register for them, click here.

Not got a PokerStars account yet? Join the world's biggest site now!

Updates provided by Marc Convey, with photos coming from René Velli and
Tomáš Stacha.

Day 1B of the IPT Main Event has reached the halfway point and all the final numbers for the event are in.

By the close of registration today a massive 718 players had taken their seats (number to be confirmed), and added to yesterday, means the event total is 942 players. That's down on the 1,285 the last IPT Malta attracted in March but, considering the amount of choice open to players in Europe right now, is an extremely encouraging number. The prize pool informational will be published on the blog just as soon as the information is released to us.

Team PokerStars Pro Andre Akkari was a latecomer, as were: Chris Brammer, Salvarore Bonavena, Luca Moschitta, Emil Patel, Martin Staszko,Ondrej Vinklarek, Dany Parlafes, Luciana Manolea, Sabina Hiatullah, Dermot Blain, Eoghan O`Dea, Ludovic Geilich and Polish popstar Wojciech Lozowski.

Around 560 players remain after six levels and, as far as we're aware, no player has passed that 100,000-mark yet. Those getting closest include: Josep Galindo (89,000), Andrea Cannizzaro, (88,000), Puk Nabuurs (86,000), and Markam Saber (80,000).

Those who can only dream about having those chips, because they don'y have any include: PokerStars Mind Sports Ambassador Jen Shahade, Anton Wigg, Jorryt van Hoof, Gordon Huntly, Steven van Zadelhoff, Simon Deadman, Neil Strike, Patrick Leonard, Fabio Lombardi, Sergey Sergeev, Oskar Szwed, Matias Riesco, Nader Alred, Daniele Sacchi and the locally based Sofia Lovgren.

The 20k Boys Club

Down to 20k after this hand! 👎 #IPTMalta https://t.co/91CLn1NzQS

— Luca Moschitta (@LucaMoschitta) October 22, 2015

I'd like 2 say my spin from 6k->20k was down 2 a coffee pep talk w @daraokearney but it prob had more 2 do w spiking an 8-outer😛. #IPTMalta

— ♠️ David K Lappin ♠️ (@DKLAPPIN) October 22, 2015

When David Lappin spoke to the blog earlier in the day, he partly explained how his stack got low:

"I flopped two pair, less than flopped better two pair; straight less than flush and trips less than trips. So, I've had a few car crashes! Luckily, being 250 bigs deep, I only lost around a quarter of my stack each time."

Who want to be Part of the €25k tomorrow?

A super sat for tomorrow's €25k is currently under way. Started at 4pm and there 28 entries so far including Dominik Panka, Joni Jouhkimainen, Juha Helppi and Rasmus Agerskov , Theo jorgensen, Adrian Mateos, Sergio Aido, Aliaksei Boika, Christopher Frank and Antonio Buonanno. It's a €3k rebuy sat and registration closes at 6:15pm.

For full details of the tournaments on offer, and when you can register for them, click here.

Not got a PokerStars account yet? Join the world's biggest site now!

Updates provided by Marc Convey, with photos coming from René Velli and
Tomáš Stacha.

A lot of fans of poker read the coverage from live events or watch the live streams and see all these pros playing in big buy-in events. It would be easy to think that to become a pro one would have to reach that level. Wrong. There is a whole level below that, the low-mid level pros, who also tour the circuit but might not always play the €5,000 buy-in and above tournaments.

Some of these tour grinders know that, event though they are playing lower buy-in tournaments (more often than not) than some of their peers, the satellite system is still an important part of their poker schedule, they're not just there to get into the bigger events. In total, 207 players won their seats for the IPT Main Event online, and another 92 won their seats here in the casino.

Irishman David Lappin is one such pro. He's a serial qualifier for PokerStars national tours, especially the UKIPT. He was kind enough to sit down with the PokerStars Blog in the break and talk through the importance of satellites and of making the most of being a poker festival such as this.

"I think satellites hugely important. A number of Irish and Lithuanian guys in particular target them. Wherever the event maybe is, be it a UKIPT, Estrelles or an IPT like this one, you'd look six weeks ahead of time, see there was going to be two or three sats a night and for someone playing five nights a week - that's 15. You might end up playing 90 sats and a good result would be to win 12 or 13 seats out of it. You're freerolling the seats then and made a couple of extra thousand on the side.

"They're so important as online poker has gotten so tough at the moment and one of the areas where there's still a lot of value is in satellites to live events. Players who normally play live are attracted to play them and they soften them up. For low-mid level pros, it's important to play one or two $100 tournaments a night and they're softer than normal $100 freezeout tournaments taking place on PokerStars.

"Satellites are a unique structure and one of the biggest edges I've been able to find, and I know other guys in Ireland and Lithuania have also been able to find, is playing optimally, especially the end game. It's very extreme from an ICM point of view and that's a skill in itself that a lot of really good players - better players than I am in normal MTTs - don't understand the extremity of what's going on in the end game, and I think they give away and edge to players like me. Normally I'd be the fish to them but it situations like that I can exploit them which makes them all the more juicier.

"I have played live satellites when at an event. Usually there's one the night before the event and I'm probably disinclined to play that one as, if I've just arrived to a city, I'd rather go for a nice meal and have a relaxed night if I'm playing the next morning. If I'm playing Day 1B I would sometimes play the live sat on Day 1A, particularly if I busted the turbo that might've been on during 1A.

"I think it's important to fit in as much play as possible whilst at events. I'm not going to lie, the hourly in a $100 turbo is not good enough to justify being there but generally speaking you're already in that city; maybe the internet connection in your hotel isn't good enough to do an online session or maybe commit to the hours that session would take. I look at the festival as one big thing. Obviously your hourly expectation is going to be the greatest or if you play the High Roller they can be very good, but the Cups are probably the nuts to be honest.

"Since PokerStars rebranded the €300 side event as the Cup, and did multiple flights, they've become the softest tournament, especially as recreational player in the city - who would maybe only play a €100 tournament - look at a €300 game and have a shot every year. It''s to see one of those guys do well as it's good for their local poker economy as the money goes back into where they normally play. Also, from a pro's point of view, it really does soften up the fields."

Day 1B of the Malta Cup takes place tonight so why not come and play this "soft" event of you're around?

For full details of the tournaments on offer, and when you can register for them, click here.

Not got a PokerStars account yet? Join the world's biggest site now!

Updates provided by Marc Convey, with photos coming from René Velli and
Tomáš Stacha.