It was a large day on the Manila Megastack 5 Main Event with a record turnout of 220 entries for Day 1a. That is the most important ever recorded field for a Manila Megastack Day 1a flight. This also brought the prize pool to an enormous P4.8M. By the top of eight hours of play, the sector dwindled right down to 49 players with Chinese Taipei's Hao-Cha Luo earning the chip leader's status with 345,500 chips bagged up.

During the last level of the principle Event, Luo was already cradling a hefty stack and it grew much more when he check-raised a player all in on a flop of K♦T♥7♥ to say another 70k chips. Luo wasn't the one one amassing chips in final round of the night, Singapore's Alex Lee picked up two timely pots, one against Korea's Soo Jo Kim, and another that sent a player packing. These wins placed him within the chip leader's zone as second-in-command with 272,500 chips. The 2015 Asia Player of the Year champion, Hong Kong's Alan "Kinglune" Lau, also amassed towers of chips to say the third top spot within the chip ladder with 249,500 chips.

One of the largest fireworks before closing time was when Indonesia's Sammy Bolung tripled up and catapulted out of the fast stack zone. Bolung's happy hand was A♣K♣ that connected with a nut flush. Bolung went from 50k chips to an excessively healthy 241,500 chips.

In addition to the leaders, players equivalent to Malaysia's Ying Lin Chua (MPC24 Red Dragon Champion), Vietnam's Thanh Ha Duong, Germany's Julian Hasse, and Norway's Henrik Tollefsen all made the cut with above average stacks. For Tollefsen, he scooped up two big pots over the past two hours of the tournament. In a single hand he held pocket jacks that doubled him up and the opposite with trip tens holding ten-eight offsuit against Filipino player Terry Gonzaga. China's Yongqi Ren and Russia's Andrei Dementev also made the list but they'll have their work cut out for them at the Final Day as they are going to be entering with very short stacks.Luckily for them and the others who hit the rail, there may be yet another flight to come back within the running.

As there are survivors, so must there be the fallen ones. Filipino pro Lester Edoc, Norway's Kai Paulsen, India's Piyush Gupta, USA's Gerald Casey, India's Dhaval Mudgal, UK's Jean Issa, Filipino Mike Takayama, and the Welcome Event champion Japan's Daiki Iijima all did not hold directly to their chips.

For a read on one of the vital action at Day 1a, head to the Manila Megastack 5 Day 1a Updates.

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Asia Pacific Poker Tour]