PokerStars Championship Macau: Mango Magic Puts O'Dwyer in Lead For Super High Roller
In a day that started out hopeful to get down to a final table of eight players, the alternate ending came at the conclusion of 10 one-hour levels.
It was Day 2 of the HK$400,000 Super High Roller in PokerStars Championship Macau at City of Dreams. Registration remained open until play resumed on Sunday and closed with a total field of 88 entries. Fifty-two players had seats as play got back underway.
With registration closed, tournament staff got to work on the numbers. They came back with a total prize pool calculated at HK$33,802,560 and 13 players were scheduled to earn a payout. The min-cash will be worth HK$676,000 and the eventual winner will collect an impressive HK$8,974,000 which is worth well over US$1.1 million.
The day ended with 14 players bagging chips to return for a final day on Monday. None had as many chips as Steve O’Dwyer who finished the day with 3,065,000.
They didn’t quite make it in the money. The tournament was down to 14 players with half an hour left in the final level of the day, but they weren’t able to find one more elimination in the hand-for-hand play to put the tournament in the money, so play will resume Monday with the bubble still intact.
Here’s a look at the chip counts players will return with on Day 3 when they play down to a champion:
| Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|
| Steve O’Dwyer | Ireland | 3,065,000 |
| Fedor Holz | Germany | 2,225,000 |
| Kahle Burns | Australia | 2,165,000 |
| Stanley Choi | Hong Kong | 2,010,000 |
| Zuo Wang | China | 1,955,000 |
| Qiang Lin | China | 1,930,000 |
| James Chen | Taiwan | 1,860,000 |
| Manig Loeser | Germany | 1,735,000 |
| Michael Egan | Australia | 1,330,000 |
| Daniel Neilson | Australia | 1,025,000 |
| Zhao Hongjun | China | 895,000 |
| Behzad Ahadpour | St. Kitts and Nevis | 675,000 |
| Dan Smith | USA | 535,000 |
| Isaac Haxton | USA | 420,000 |
Early in the day, Troy Quenneville emerged as the chip leader after a series if big pots went his way. The first was when he eliminated Wayne Yap who held the second-nut flush with Q♠8♠ on a board of A♠7♦J♥6♠4♠. Quenneville turned over J♠K♠ for the best flush and scooped up a big pot.
Not long after, he took out Yuan Li when Li jammed the river with J♥4♥3♠4♠A♠ on the table. The river was an action card as it had given Li a flush with his J♠10♠, but Quenneville’s aces had made a boat, earning him another huge pot and the chip lead.
However, Quenneville was unable to survive the day. He lost a big chunk of his stack when he got his ace-jack all in against Zuo Wang’s ace-king and couldn’t catch up.
Play will resume Monday with the bubble still intact.
Then, the one-time chip leader got it all in preflop with another one-time chip leader, Michael Egan who started the day with the most chips. The two were racing with Quenneville hoping to hit a card with his A♥K♦ against the Q♣Q♥ of his opponent. The board came 6♣J♥9♣4♦Q♠ and Egan unnecessarily improved to a set, eliminating Quenneville from the tournament.
Some of the players who didn’t make it to Day 3 included Fabian Quoss, David Peters, Daniel Dvoress, JC Alvarado, Dario Sammartino, Mustapha Kanit, Philipp Gruissem, Davidi Kitai, Sam Greenwood, Bertrand Grospellier and Sylvain Loosli.
One of the unheralded efforts from today’s play came from Steve O’Dwyer’s mango (pictured above). Yuan Li was playing this event and is well known for having an orange at the table with him for good luck, like Johnny Chan. The two have running banter about the topic and Li presented O’Dwyer with a mango for good luck and it has been instrumental in his success.
Several times when O’Dwyer has been in critical situations, he has rubbed the mango or placed it forward, closer to the board, and he has been saved each time. There’s no doubt the mango will be back on Monday for Day 3 to continue to work its magic.
Play resumes at 12:30 on Monday and will continue until just one remains. Check back in with PokerNews tomorrow for reports of the action.
