The Manila Megastack 19 concluded its second day of festivities at Okada Manila, Philippines. The series runs for 11 days from September 19 to 29, guaranteeing a prize pool of PHP 37 Million (~USD 665,000) with 40 numbered events and 11 qualifiers.
Highlighting the day werre the final two flights of the Kickoff PHP 3 Million Guaranteed. On opening day, 11 players advanced to Day 2 and are now guaranteed a minimum ITM payout. They are joined by an additional 39 players that bagged up at Flight B and Flight C combined. The event drew a total of 325 entries, which means good news for players with the prize pool improving to over PHP 4 Million, surpassing the 3 Million guarantee.
Japanese poker pro Matsuda Michihiko was the top chip leader of flight B while Michael Gabby Concepcion was the big chip leader of flight C.
Date: September 19 to 21, 2024
Buy-in: Php 16,500 (~USD 295)
Guaranteed: PHP 3,000,000 (~USD 54,000)
Entries: 325
Prize Pool: PHP 4,577,430 (~USD 82,300)
ITM: 50 players
Day 1A: 72 entries / 11 advanced
Day 1B: 168 entries / 29 advanced
Day 1C: 85 entries / 13 advanced
Read up on the day’s action via the Daily Updates.
The second day at Manila Megastack 19 also brought a Super Knockout PHP10,000 Bounty, where players could earn a quick reward by knocking another player out of the tournament. In this case, a PHP 10,000 bounty which is the equivalent of half the buy-in. Knock out two players and you get your buy-in back. Knock out three and you’ve turned a quick profit.
With a total 40 entries, there were a lot of bounties to be made on top of the regular payouts for the top 6 players that ran deep in the tournament. Apart from the 6 money-placers who had their share of the prize pool, there were those who made money from earning bounties. There were 15 players who won at least one bounty. The top bounty hunters included the likes of Kasper Hansen with 4 bounties and Iwao Taisaku with 5. But the real top bounty hunter was J MIchael Shell, who scalped a whopping 10 bounties, and would go on to become tournament champion, earning a coveted PokerStars spade trophy, a first place prize of PHP 96,000 (~USD 1,725) plus the bounties from those he knocked out.
The last event of Manila Megastack 19’s second day was a PHP10,000 Hyper Turbo, which built a prize pool of over PHP400,000 (~USD 7,500). The top 7 players earned their share from the pot, but the biggest winner was Hyper Turbo champion Cheng Yu Liao of Taiwan, earning a grand prize of PHP 141,000 (~USD 2,500) and a PokerStars spade trophy.
More events are still coming to bring more chances for earning, including The Main Event PHP 20 Million Guaranteed.
*Article by JJ Duque
Links:
Manila Megastack 19 – Schedule / Player Guide
Manila Megastack 19 – News
Manila Megastack 19 – Daily Updates
Manila Megastack – Photos
Manila Megastack – Festival Results
Tricia David
Tricia David has long experience as a recreational poker player and has been covering poker events since 2010 for numerous outfits in Asia. She spent one year working part time with Poker Portal Asia then became editor and lead writer for all event coverage of the Philippine Poker Tour (PPT). Under the PPT, she overlooked content for their website, and produced live updates on all their events. In addition, she served as the live and online events website content writer for the Asian Poker Tour. Currently, she does live events reporting in Asia for online news site Somuchpoker and is also one of their news contributors.
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