The U Series of Poker – USOP Danang 2024 festival, ongoing at the Pullman Danang Beach Resort, Vietnam, was headed for a massive Main Event turnout with record breaking attendance witnessed during the nine days of pre-games.
Six events in particular were strong indicators – Mystery Millions, Mini Main Event, Sunday Superstack, High Roller Megastack, and Super High Roller – each one seeing unique players in triple digits. The Billionaire Club Challenge was a stunner, its record high turnout amassed a 1 Million USD prize pool.
USOP Danang 2024 – Main Event by the numbers
Enter the Main Event. As it unfolded, the series headliner delivered on every front. Each starting day surpassed its own record, with Day 1C setting a new high turnout of 587 entries. In total, it drew 1,702 entries across four stating flights to amass a record VN₫ 44,575,300,000 (~USD 1,800,000) prize pool.
Date: March 28 to April 1, 2024
Buy in: VN₫ 30,000,000 (~USD 1,235)
Guarantee: VN₫ 15,000,000,000 (~USD 614,500)
Total entries: 1,702 (1,255 unique)
Prize pool: VN₫ 44,575,300,000 (~USD 1,800,000)
ITM: 213 players
Day 1 results
Day 1A: 366 entries (282 unique) / 46 ITM
Day 1B: 416 entries (314 unique) / 52 ITM
Day 1C: 587 entries (411 unique) / 73 ITM
Day 1D: 333 entries (241 unique) / 42 ITM
Coming Day 2, 213 players will return to action, each one guaranteed a piece of that mighty pot. The top prize is a substantial VN₫ 7,120,000,000 (~USD 287,677), which is the largest ever top prize to be awarded at the USOP. In USD, the top four will see six figure paydays.
Final Table payouts
| Place | Payout in VN₫ | ~USD |
| 1 | 7,120,000,000 | 287,677 |
| 2 | 4,916,000,000 | 198,626 |
| 3 | 3,422,000,000 | 138,263 |
| 4 | 2,504,200,000 | 101,180 |
| 5 | 1,877,100,000 | 75,842 |
| 6 | 1,512,000,000 | 61,091 |
| 7 | 1,230,700,000 | 49,725 |
| 8 | 960,300,000 | 38,800 |
| 9 | 712,800,000 | 28,800 |
Out of all the ITM qualifiers, only one champion advanced, 2024 USOP Taiwan Main Event champion Chen Yu Hung aka Sam Hung who is on his first ever visit to Vietnam. Also on her first visit is Thailand’s Nattapon Chaimungkhun who will bring in the largest stack into Day 2.
Top 10 in chips
| Rank | Player | Flag | Stack | BB |
| 1 | Nattapon Chaimungkhun | Thailand | 1,161,000 | 116 |
| 2 | Pham Bao | Vietnam | 1,065,000 | 107 |
| 3 | You Hyun Kim | Korea | 926,000 | 93 |
| 4 | Tae Hyoeng Kim | Korea | 883,000 | 88 |
| 5 | Thomas Ward | New Zealand | 878,000 | 88 |
| 6 | Won Chul Bae | Korea | 874,000 | 87 |
| 7 | Changjun Kim | Korea | 853,000 | 85 |
| 8 | Zhou Zhiguang | China | 826,000 | 83 |
| 9 | Tien Nguyen | Vietnam | 809,000 | 81 |
| 10 | Le Giang Nam | Vietnam | 790,000 | 79 |
Day 2 breakdown by Flag
Other interesting facts, 26 flags will be represented in Day 2 with host Vietnam fielding 51 players try to secure another Main Event title for home soil. In best position is Pham Bao who is ranked second in chips. Korea comes in strong with 46 players. Among them are You Hyun Kim and Tae Hyoeng Kim, both players in the top 10 after bagging flight chip leads. Also to watch for is Soo Jo Kim who place 2nd at the Billionaire Club Challenge.
In third position is China with 41 players hoping to rein in a first ever USOP major. This is the largest showing of Chinese players at the USOP and many have captured side event titles. Last night, Joe Zhou (Zhou Zhiguang) bagged the Day 1D chip lead. Others to watch for are WSOP bracelet winner Wei Guo Liang, Xiao Sheng Zheng, Xu Bo, and Can Kai Zhang to name a few.
| Flag | Players |
| Vietnam | 51 |
| Korea | 46 |
| China | 41 |
| Australia | 8 |
| India | 7 |
| Russia | 6 |
| UK | 6 |
| Hong Kong | 5 |
| Malaysia | 5 |
| Canada | 4 |
| France | 4 |
| Thailand | 4 |
| Ireland | 3 |
| Singapore | 3 |
| Taiwan | 3 |
| USA | 3 |
| Belarus | 2 |
| Japan | 2 |
| New Zealand | 2 |
| Philippines | 2 |
| Indonesia | 1 |
| Laos | 1 |
| Lithuania | 1 |
| Poland | 1 |
| Serbia | 1 |
| Sweden | 1 |
Follow the action!
Links:
USOP Danang 2024 – News
USOP Danang 2024 – Festival Results
USOP Danang 2024 – Player of the Series Leaderboard
USOP Danang 2024 – Schedule
USOP Danang 2024 – Photo Gallery
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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