PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — The World Poker Tour opened its 22nd season here Wednesday, 17 January, at the NagaWorld Integrated Resorts, the first time ever that the WPT Main Tour is being held in Southeast Asia.

Players were greeted with a welcome speech by WPT Live Events Specialist, Danny McDonagh, alongside partner Connaissance Management General Manager, Erique Tan, and NagaWorld senior operations manager, Christopher Paul Gros.

"A very warm welcome to you all. On behalf of all the organizers, we thank you all for being here today. This is the fourth time the World Poker Tour has come to NagaWorld in Cambodia but first for its Main Tour."

"There's a million US dollar guarantee for the first time and the winners name will be engraved on this magnificent trophy — the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup… We are also very pleased that so many players have already committed to coming to this festival. We are expecting several new records to be set," he said.

The Philippines' Dave "Spade" Erquiaga and Rhenz Villanueva are already in town representing Team DCamps of Andrew De Ocampo. They travelled direct from Las Vegas, Nevada after playing in some tournaments at Wynn where Erquiaga won two titles.

The NagaWorld Superstack headlines the opening day games. At sundown, the Superstack Turbo joined on the floor, concluding with Cheng Zhang as the first side event champion of the festival.

It was excitement from the start as players quickly pulled up seats for the first event of the festival. Among the eager contenders were Hong Kong's Hon Cheong Lee, Korea's Seong Min Lee, South Africa's Marc Joseph, Russia's Natalia Rozova, Denmark's Michael Falcon, Vietnam's Bien Mai, to name a few. At the close of registration, a total of 207 signed up for a prize pool of USD 72,284.

Playing down to the money round, it was a double elimination during the bubble round with Frank Lillis and Dimitri Isaev both knocking out a player at their table. The fallen split the last place cash and 25 players bagged up. Japan's Haruto Murata racked the largest of 53 bb, trailed closely by France's Clement Thumy with 51 bb.

SOMUCHPOKER.COM