The PokerStars Live Manila poker room at City of Dreams Manila held its final day of the P1 Million Guaranteed Main Event with 66 players returning to the felt. After seven hours of play, Filipino player David Erquiaga bested them all to claim the championship trophy.

Prior to today's activities, the past two days saw a combined total of 368 entries fill the seats to capacity bringing the prize pool to PHP1,570,624, well above the guarantee. With only 36 getting paid, it was no surprise to see heavy action early.

As soon as the cards were in the air, players immediately fell to the wayside starting with Japanese player In Sin who was one of the players already at the bottom part of the ladder. Immediately after, more short stacks joined him making it difficult to keep up with who busted who and what happened.

The short stacks were not the only ones hitting the rail, several big stacks also saw their stacks getting pummeled. One of them was Korea's Young Chull Kim who was one of the day's chip leaders. Kim lost a big pot when a full house toppled his straight.

The bubble burst when one of the Asia Player of Year top contenders, Yang Zhang (China), was eliminated by the highly exuberant Luke Pangan. Zhang shoved with his [ad][9d] but Pangan's pocket tens held up sending Zhang to the rail without any pay.

With the remaining players now seeing a profit, the tournament continued in turbo mode. The overall chip leader coming into the day, Filipino poker pro Jessie Leonarez was one of those who surprisingly busted out immediately after the bubble.

The final table of nine was decided when Filipino player Noel Araniel eliminated Nicholas Gorman with his pocket aces staying strong the whole way against Gorman's pocket kings. Araniel entered the final table as the only player having crossed the million-mark.

At the final table, Archie Mariano and Justin Worth were running very hot. Overall, they both caused the most damage to the field by claiming three victims each. Mariano's first victim was Filipino poker pro Mike Takayama. Takayama was also the first player to be eliminated at the table. Worth's first victim was Araniel who fell right after Takayama.

When the table eventually downsized to four players namely, Pangan, Worth, Mariano, and Erquiaga, they tried to strike a deal but to no success. Action then continued with Pangan eliminated by Worth's pair of ducks. At three-handed, Mariano quickly doubled up with his [as][ks] against Worth's [kh][jc] and took the chip lead away. After a short break, the players discussed a deal again and this time came to an agreement. All that was left was to play for the value added package and the trophy.

Worth quickly jumped back into the leader's seat when he doubled up with his pocket queens against Mariano's [ad][4s] but it was short-lived. Mariano immediately retaliated and reclaimed all his chips (and more) from Worth with his pocket aces. Worth fell further when his [qc][th] doubled up Erquiaga's [js][jd], and was unable to survive with his very short stack. Mariano put an end to Worth's day and it was heads up.

The heads up action saw Mariano ahead with 3.4M to Erquiaga's 2.1M chips. As the trend of the day, it was still fast and action packed. Erquiaga won almost all the pots between them, and in just fifteen minutes, Mariano was fighting for his tournament life. Mariano was all in with [8d][6c] for an open ended on a board of [7d][5h][7h]. Erquiaga had trips with [7s][6d]. The turn of [kc] and river of [tc] were of no help to Mariano and with that, Erquiaga took the championship.

Congratulations to David Erquiaga! He earned PHP237,400, Main Event trophy, and the P100,000 Macau Poker Cup package. Erquiaga also won the first side event, the P200,000 Guarantee. Great payday for Erquiaga at the P1M Guarantee series!

P1M Guarantee Main Event
Total entries: 368
Total prize pool: PHP1,570,624
Payouts: 36 (in PHP)
1st - David Jansen Erquiaga - Philippines - 247,400 (deal made)
2nd - Archie Mariano - Philippines - 281,000 (deal made)
3rd - Justin Worth - Australia - 231,524 (deal made)
4th - Christopher Luke Pangan - Philippines - 124,000
5th - Ashley de Guzman - Philippines - 93,600
6th - John Sayo - Philippines - 68,400
7th - Ernesto Camerino - Philippines - 53,200
8th - Noel Araniel - Philippines - 44,900
9th - Mike Takayama - Philippines - 29,700
10th - Nicholas Gorman - United States -
11th - Raul Aquino - Philippines - 25,100
12th - Man Ho John So -Hong Kong - 25,100
13th - Mansueto Padernal - Philippines - 20,500
14th - Joseroy Jeremial Jr. - Philippines - 20,500
15th - Alan King Lun Lau - Hong Kong - 20,500
16th - Fritjof Per Jonas Torstensson - Sweden - 16,700
17th - Kunal Shetty -India - 16,700
18th - Daisy Wain - Philippines - 16,700
19th - Hyung Jin Chun - Canada - 13,700
20th - John Riad - Denmark - 13,700
21st -Eugene Co - Philippines - 13,700
22nd - Timothy de Leon - Philippines - 12,200
23rd - Delfino Ty - Philippines - 12,200
24th - Roden Munoz - Philippines - 12,200
25th - Steven Chua - Philippines - 10,600
26th - Nickolai Alexandrov - United States - 10,600
27th - Bernard Camposanto - Philippines - 10,600
28th - Soo Jo Kim - Korea - 9,900
29th - Pasi Heinanen - Finland - 9,900
30th - Rommel Orbigo - Philippines - 9,900
31st - Jessie Leonarez - Philippines - 9,900
32nd - Joven Huerto - Philippines - 9,900
33rd - Masayasu Tomiyama - Japan - 9,900
34th - Jae Chul Chang - Korea - 9,900
35th - Anthony Gabitan - Philippines - 9,900
36th - Myoungsoo Koh - Korea - 9,900

If you missed the live action of the final day/final table, just head to the P1 Million: Final Day Updates to read up on some of those we were able to witness.

Side Events Results

Event 4: Deep Stack Hyper Turbo Freezeout
Entries: 15
Prize pool: PHP130,950
Payouts: 3 (in PHP)
1st- Nicolas Noguera - France - 70,450
2nd- Do Kweun Kim - Korea - 36,300
3rd- Daryl Green - Philippines - 24,200

Event 5: KO Bounty (P200,000 Guarantee)
Entries: 127
Prize pool: PHP207,518
Payouts: 12 (in PHP) (additional P63,500 awarded in bounties)
1st- Wendell Garcia- Philippines - 52,300
2nd- Jiayi Sun - China - 35,300
3rd- Man Ho John So - Hong Kong - 23,700
4th- Scott Davies - United States - 18,800
5th- Jerez Mercado - Philippines - 14,800
6th- Muge Dizerkonca - Turkey - 12,800
7th- Kunal Shetty - India - 10,900
8th- Hamid Hamzavian - Australia - 8,900
9th- Peter Uy - Philippines - 6,900
10th- Christopher Mateo - Philippines - 4,818
11th- Tin Fu Trajano - Philippines - 4,000
12th- Zhinning Chen - China - 4,000