Manila Megastack 19 Opening Day Highlights: Lenart Ecarma, Patil Vishwajit, Moon Kyung Ho Outshine
The Manila Megastack 19 series is set to run for 11 days from September 19 to 29, 2024 at Okada Manila, Manila Philippines, with 40 trophy events and 11 qualifiers, playing for a total guaranteed prize pool of PHP 37 Million (~USD 665,000) in that span.
Opening day was a very wet and stormy one in Manila, but that did not deter the poker players from chasing their dreams. The SuperStack Php 1 Million Guaranteed was the first event to start the ball rolling. By the close of registration, there were a total of 144 entries who padded the prize pool to PHP 1,475,201 (~USD 26,500) with the top 20 guaranteed a payout.
Armed with a 40,000 starting stack and a friendly structure of 25 minute levels, the poker action was patient, forgiving, but still very intense. Chipleaders fell in and out of the rankings throughout the tournament, and allowed for players to recover from losses and mistakes. The event witnessed players such as Brandon Misfud, Terry Gonzaga, Ryuki Shirase, Kyo Edgawa, Hyong Geomui and Jinho Lee have their moments at the top of the tournament leaderboard, but in the end there could be only one left standing to earn the top prize of PHP 353,000 (~USD 6,400).
Emerging victorious was Filipino poker pro Lenart Ecarma, who has booked over 50 ITM finishes in his poker resumé since October 2023 (by Hendonmob’s accounting). This event win is his biggest live cash earning. Ecarma stayed consistently among the top ten through most of the tournament and slowly flew under the radar to make the final table.
Ecarma was severely short stacked when the last 3 players were left. Korea’s Hyong Gyeomui seemed to be the favorite as Hyong was among the huge chip leaders through the latter parts of the tournament, but Ecarma managed to double-up three times and eventually knock out his last two competitors to come out on top.
Date: September 19, 2024
Buy in: PHP 12,000 (~USD 216)
Guarantee: PHP 1,000,000 (~USD 18,000)
Entries: 144
Prize Pool: PHP 1,475,021 (~USD 26,558)
ITM: 20 places
| Place | Player | Flag | Payout in PHP |
| 1 | Lenart Ecarma | Philippines | ₱ 355,000 |
| 2 | Gyeom Ui Hong | Korea, South | ₱ 222,000 |
| 3 | Ryuki Shirase | Japan | ₱ 159,000 |
| 4 | Terry Gonzaga | Philippines | ₱ 122,000 |
| 5 | Jack Li-Yinding | China | ₱ 94,000 |
| 6 | Battulga Ganbold | Mongolia | ₱ 72,500 |
| 7 | Brandon Charles Mifsud | Malta | ₱ 55,500 |
| 8 | Rick Jason Ambata | Philippines | ₱ 46,000 |
| 9 | Jaime Ramon Reyes | United States | ₱ 38,521 |
Full results can be found in the Festival Results.
Opening Day also rolled out The Kickoff PHP 3 Million Guaranteed event and launched its first of three Day 1 rounds. The Day 1A first flight had a total of 72 entries with only the top 11 awarded the chance to advance to the Day 2 / ITM round.
Korea’s Moon Kyung Ho was the big chip leader at the end of Day 1A. In fact, he was the chip leader through most of the tournament. From the early levels, Moon Kyung Ho’s stack just kept on getting bigger. It just seemed that he was on point with every move he made, heavily favored by the poker gods.
Korean Woojin Kim finished Day 1A with the second highest chip count while Filipino Rene Mar David was not that far behind with the third largest stack, earning a huge chunk of it by bursting the bubble at 12th place and cementing the journey of the top 11 to the Day 2 Final.
The combined chips of the top 3 amounted to half of the chips in play for the Day1 flight. The other 8 survivors include: Fu Shenbo Alang, Froilan Dela Pena, Wing Sheuk Sham, Michael Calunsod, Raphael Bulaong, Chirag Shah and Patrick Wahlquist.
Capping off the opening day events was the PHP 10,000 NLHE Turbo, which drew a decent crowd of 29 entries to create a prize pool of PHP 247,544 (~USD 4,450). Only the top 5 players would make ITM with the top prize of PHP 94,544 (~USD 1,700).
The big winner of the event was Patil Vishwajit, who shared the chip leader throne with eventual runner-up Cheun Ei Ho throughout the tournament. When the bubble burst at 6th place, it didn’t take very long for Vishwajit to destroy the last of the final table. Maybe it was the pressuring and desperate nature of the turbo structure, but it was impressively surgical. In five consecutive hands, Vishmajit knocked the last four players out to emerge as the event champion.
Date: September 19, 2024
Buy in: PHP 10,000 (~USD 180)
Entries: 29
Prize Pool: PHP 247,544 (~USD 4,457)
ITM: 5 places
| Place | Player | Flag | Payout in PHP |
| 1 | Vishwajit Patil | India | ₱ 94,544 |
| 2 | Yoshi Cheun Eui Ho | Korea, South | ₱ 60,500 |
| 3 | Yasuchika Kanagi | Japan | ₱ 40,000 |
| 4 | Stephen Ho | United States | ₱ 29,000 |
| 5 | Motohiro Fujita | Japan | ₱ 23,500 |
The opening day may have been wet and stormy outside, but the poker action was certainly hot at Okada Manila.
*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
