Let’s not beat around the bush, Macau is far away. It takes about 11 hours to get to here from Europe, nine from Australia and even four hours from Tokyo or Beijing. Actually that’s how long it takes to get to Hong Kong, which is the closest major international airport. You then need to take a ferry or another puddle jumper plane to Macau’s airstrip. It’s safe to say that most of the 388 players will have travelled via land, air and sea to get here.

But such is the appeal of the APPT that players have come from far and wide. The field has representatives from 37 countries, from as far afield as Peru, Romania, Norway, the United Arab Emirates, and even some place called the United States.

Fred Leung, of PokerStars Macau, recently sent around full details of of the nationalities of our players this week, which we present here in pie-chart form.

Full data, including the breakdown of the countries listed as “other” is below the chart.

China 105 players (27 per cent of total field), Hong Kong 60 (15), Australia 35 (9), Chinese Taipei 21 (5), USA 17 (4), Malaysia 16 (4), Japan 14 (4), South Korea 14 (4), Singapore 13 (3), Russia 11 (3), India 9 (2), Philippines 8 (2), UK 8 (2), Canada 6 (2), New Zealand 6 (2), South Africa 5 (1), France 4 (1), Germany 4 (1), Kazakhstan 3 (< 1), Thailand 3 (< 1), two from each of Denmark, Greece, Iran, Lebanon, Macau, Norway, Switzerland, Vietnam, and one from Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Italy, Mongolia, Unknown, Peru, Romania, UAE.

No surprise, of course, to see China and Hong Kong well represented, but the APPT is also now the tour of choice for players from Australasia. There will be marketeers also keeping a close eye on the gradual interest being shown these days by Indian players, who are now breathing down the necks of the ubiquitous Russians.

(Big shout out too to those guys from Unknown. They really get everywhere.)

A reminder on how to follow our coverage from Macau. There is hand-by-hand coverage at the top of the main APPT Macau page, which includes chip counts. Feature coverage will filter in beneath the panel. All the information about the Asia Pacific Poker Tour is on the APPT site, and PokerStars Macau also has its own home.

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