As the weekend approaches, several players have been funneling into Macau from Hong Kong and mainland China.
While they're taking their first crack at the Macau Millions today, many others aren't. Lots of players have been trying to make it to Day 2 for a few days but only a few have succeeded. Fifty three to be exact.
Two of these players have even made it twice and are looking to accomplish the first ever Day 2 hat trick at the Macau Millions. Both Jack Lee and Alexandre Chieng have survived two Day 1s and are looking to improve their results today.
Chieng is in Day 2 with 93,000 while Lee has 52,000. Chieng is currently short stacked but knows how to take victory here in Macau. Chieng took down APPT Macau last june for HKD $2,165,000 and followed that up with a cash in the 2013 WSOP Main Event.
Lee on the other hand is looking for his first major victory in Macau.
There are several other Day 2 short stacks that are taking another shot today. Percy Yung, who made it through with just 24,500, is giving it another shot today. Yung bubbled Day 1A and came close to bubbling again on 1D.
Yung is on her second bullet of the day and will need to gather some chips if she wants to survive today. Yung was also one of two women to make it to Day 2. Both she and Team PokerStars Vivian Im survived the Day 1D onslaught.
But while Yung finished at the bottom of the chip counts, Im finished near the top. Im made it through with 294,000 and is now third overall in chips. But Im is back for more and says she's looking to do better than she did yesterday.
Im's on the right track as she's started to chip up and busted a player. There was about 3,500 in the pot and the board read [9c][8d][3d][10s]. Im bet 2,500 and her opponent moved all-in for about 6,000. Im called and showed [9d][9h] for a set while her opponent showed a straight with [jc][qd].
Then the river brought an [8s] and filled Im up. After winning a few more pots, Im is now well above average with about 35,000.
Im is the largest Day 2 stack in the field, followed by Kevin Petersen, who's currently in Day 2 with 241,000.
Another Day 1 survivor with some chips is Iori Yogo. Yogo made it through Day 1A as the short stack with 40,000 and has been playing every day since.
Now Yogo has slightly more than 30,000 and will keep battling for another Day 2 and a bonus HKD $11,000.
Alexander Villegas is a freelance contributor to the Pokerstars Blog.