The stacks are in the bag for Day 1 flights on partypoker and the MILLION Mini Main Event, which has a guarantee of a cool million dollars has just 169 players left fighting for the title.
With 28 events taking place across the MILLIONS Online festival on partypoker, the opening event saw Day 1a and !b take place on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
At the end of those two Day 1 flights, so e very big names were assembling at the top of the leaderboard.
Featuring a $1,100 buy-in, the MILLIONS Online Mini Main Event saw 1,127 entries overall whittle down to just 15% of the field, putting each of the Day 2 players in the money for a min-cash of $2,105.
Leading the field after all the Day 1 flights is Colombian player Sebastian Henao, who bagged up over 27 million chips, just more than the 25.4 million that two-time WSOP bracelet winner Elio Fox totalled and the 23 million that Luciano Hollanda gathered up.
Behind those players, some truly massive names are chasing down the top prize of $184,507, with Patrick Blye (22,663,403), Thomas Boivin (18,388,054), Joseph Cheong (17,118,762), William Kassouf (16,075,000), Espen Jorstad (13,730,257), and Dominik Nitsche (12,483,080) all hoping to turn above-average stacks into thousands of dollars.
One name that leaps out is, of course, Joe Cheong. If you ever consider Joseph Cheong to be a fortunate poker player, simply watch this hand from the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event to cleanse yourself of that notion.
It’s hard not to always root for Cheong, not only for his talent, but his personality too. The opposite might be true for some poker fans when it comes to the former WSOP Main Event living meme Will Kassouf, who went from “Nine-high like a boss” to “sacked for palming casino chips” in double-quick time in the years after that infamous Vegas summer of privilege.
With one re-entry permitted on Day 1, plenty of players took advantage of that facility and with everyone in the money on the freezeout Day 2, plenty will change when it comes to gameplay now. Blind levels increase from 25 minutes to 30 minutes on Day 2, wit Day 3 going up to 40 minutes, so there is still a lot of play left in the opening event.
Day 2 will see just 10 blind levels wrap at five hours of poker, before Day 3 reduces the field to a final table of nine, so the winner will take the victory on Wednesday 17th. Before that, there is a lot of poker to be played, and all the more drama to be enjoyed. We’ll be back tomorrow to tell you exactly how Day 2 goes… and which players survive to fight another day.
The MILLIONS Online festival is under way and the Mini Main Event looks sure to build plenty of drama on its way to a thrilling climax.
partypoker MILLIONS Mini Main Event Start of Day 2 Top 10 Chipcounts:
| Position | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
| 1st | Sebastian Henao | Colombia | 27,039,049 | 193 |
| 2nd | Elio Fox | United Kingdom | 25,419,260 | 182 |
| 3rd | Luciano Hollanda | Brazil | 23,000,730 | 164 |
| 4th | Patrick Charles Blye | Canada | 22,663,403 | 162 |
| 5th | Nikolai Penkin | Russia | 18,426,901 | 132 |
| 6th | Thomas Boivin | Belgium | 18,388,054 | 131 |
| 7th | Vitezslav Cech | Czech Republic | 18,020,370 | 129 |
| 8th | Daria Krashennikova | Russia | 17,750,348 | 127 |
| 9th | Thomas Macdonald | United Kingdom | 17,618,322 | 126 |
| 10th | Joseph Cheong | U.S.A. | 17,118,762 | 122 |
