The 20th running of the Macau Poker Cup is on track to be the biggest of all time if the early numbers are anything to go by.
The good staff at PokerStars LIVE Macau at City of Dreams have been talking about a Red Dragon Main Event field in excess of 1,000 players, which would easily eclipse the 891 who sat down for the first Red Dragon to be held at the current venue a little under a year ago.
But whatever happens in the Main Event, it appears the MPC is already on its way to setting a new record for total attendance across the 13-event schedule. The series started last Friday with the HK$6,000 Baby Dragon which attracted a field of 332 runners – more than double the 152 who took part in the HK$5,500 event at the last MPC in August. Impressively, it also beats the 310 players in the HK$5,500 event last April … and that was a rebuy event!
The HK$2,000 Pot Limit Omaha event attracted a field of 115 players, well up on the 66 from the last MPC. And the HK$2,000 Deepstack drew 296 players – slightly down on the 334 players who took part last April but up on the 205 who took part in August.
Australia’s Bobby Zhang won the record-breaking Baby Dragon event last weekend
In total, MPC20 has set a new opening weekend attendance record with 743 players taking part from Friday to Sunday and total prize money reaching HK$2,456,622. The previous high was at MPC18 last April which saw 644 players take part over the opening three days for prize pools totaling HK$2.09 million.
It’s great to see poker in Macau continuing to grow and hopefully we do indeed hit that 1,000 player mark in the Red Dragon starting on Thursday 16 January.
