Warm-up (12,500 PHP)

After 17 rounds of play, Flight A of the Manila Super Series 21 Kick Off event bagged up with 19 players out of the 124 entries securing their seat in the ITM round. At the top of the leaderboard was Filipino player James Moriles with 437,000 (73 bb).

Moriles was the bane of multiple players including Alari Kunnapuu to catapult to the flight's throne. One of Moriles' more interesting hands was a three-bet call preflop on the small blind with A♠ 9♥ that won the flip against big blind Andrei Vavilonskii's 4♥ 4♠ . At the time of the shove, both players had over 30 bb. This hand kicked off his ascent to set the bar for the final flight.

Not too far behind were Royly Oracion (401,000) and Kiril Gelev (400,000) both with 67 bb. On the rail side, MSS 6 Kick Off champion David Erquiaga was unable to hold on to his chips, pushing his mid-pair into Dmitrii Belikov's set of aces. Erquiaga quickly jumped in the next flight hoping for a better result.

The survivors return on February 2 at 12pm to chase down the first key title of the series.

Nachor's hooks survive for a triple up and Oracion claims the side pot.

Chip leader update: James Moriles catapulted to the top of the counts after booting out Alari Kunnapuu.

With the river 9♣ , Lizano gets the boot as Moriles rises to the top of the leaderboard.