Phil Ivey Eliminated from APPT Macau

The 2011 PokerStars APPT Macau Main Event is underway at the Casino Grand Lisboa in Macau, and will crown its champion come Sunday.
The grand finale HKD30,000 (US$3,850) Main Event managed to set a new attendance record of 575 players, as well as attracting a whole array of big names to the tournament.
Amongst those top pros turning-up on the other side of the globe was none other than Phil Ivey, previously MIA since Black Friday in the US.
Entering Day 1a of the competition, Ivey managed to almost double his 50k starting stack before dropping back to 51,200 by the end of the day. Day 2 of the tournament is now reaching its finish and Ivey’s Main Event campaign has come to a close after being eliminated late in the day.
Phil Ivey seemed to have a tough time getting anything going but did manage to build his stack to around 70,000 chips before things started going south.
Ivey then lost some chips and was down to 32,500 when he was dealt Qc-8c on the big blind and decided to flat-call Devan Tang (Ks-Js) raise to 7,000. Both players then checked down the Ad-Ah-6s-2d-4d board to leave Ivey short on chips.
Less than an hour later and Ivey was then down to just 18,700 chips when he was dealt Kc-9h on the button and decided to re-raise all-in Darren Judges (Ad-Jc) in the cutoff. The board subsequently ran out 6-6-5-10-8 bringing an end to Ivey’s return to live tournament poker.
Although disappointing for the US pro, Ivey will now turn his attentions more fully to the famed high-stakes ‘Macau Big Game,’ which has been running over the past week or so. The game offers invited pros the opportunity to play against some of China’s wealthiest amateur poker enthusiasts, and thus is a golden opportunity to make some serious money. Last year, for instance, Tom Dwan was reputed to have taken around $9 million profit away from the game.
In the meantime, the APPT Macau Main Event has now been reduced from 575 to around 100 players. Some of the big names still in contention and making it through to Day 3 include David Steicke, Jeff Rossiter, Andrew Scott, Terrence Chan and Johnny Chan.