The Macau Poker Cup celebrates a quarter-century this week with MPC25 already steamrolling its way into the record books. The 17-day festival has just eclipsed the halfway point and now it’s time for the prestigious HK$12,000 Red Dragon Main Event.
Officially commencing on Sunday with Day 1A the Red Dragon boasts a HK$6,000,000 guarantee and will have big shoes to fill after the roaring success of MPC24. The last iteration of the series saw a record-breaking 1,075 entrants, earning the title of the largest freezeout tournament ever in the Asia-Pacific.
When all was said and done it was Malaysia’s Ying Lin Chua who overcame the mammoth field and a tough final table (including Tom Alner and Wayne Zhang) to score himself HK$1,904,000 after a three-handed deal. And as if that wasn’t enough, Chua also became the proud new owner of the best-looking trophy in poker.
Time will tell if the Red Dragon record can be broken again this week but organizers have high expectations after the Baby Dragon event just crushed a record of its own. The biggest field previously for the Baby Dragon was seen in August last year with 353 runners in attendance. This week a whopping 575 entrants pulled up seats to generate a prize pool of HK$3,513,825 and dwarf the HK$1,000,000 guarantee. With the Baby Dragon blowing expectations out of the water, here’s hoping the Red Dragon Main Event follows suit.
“The Baby Dragon result has far exceeded what we expected and we already had high expectation to begin with” said APPT President Mark Blake.
Among what is gearing up to be a packed house, the quality of the field will also be anything but lacklustre. The Team PokerStars contingent has already made itself known this week, with Celina Lin and Chen-an Lin returning to Day 2 of the Baby Dragon today.
For now though the primary focus will be on the imminent Red Dragon. The tournament includes three Day 1 flights with the final table beginning on Friday. We’ll also have High Roller coverage on the days following the crowning of our Red Dragon champion so be sure to keep an eye out for that.
Red Dragon Day 1A begins Sunday at 2pm local time and if you want to get involved via social media use the Twitter hashtag #MPC25. We hope you can join us!
Back to Top
