It’s no surprise that Phil Ivey’s first poker tournament since Black Friday would take place at the APT Macau, since the big games that have historically sprung up around the tournament have seen some of the biggest pots in the history of the game, and attracts some biggest names in poker and the business world.

Ivey took part in Day 1a of the APT tournament, and managed to take around 100,000 chips into Friday’s Day 2. A total of 269 players showed up for Day 1a, and by the end of the night only 164 remained. In addition to Ivey a few other big names managed to survive the day –which doesn’t necessarily mean they will even play on Friday, considering Tom Dwan decided he’d rather blind-off in the tournament than pass up the cash game that was taking place in Macau.

Here are a few of the players who will join Ivey on Friday for Day 2 of the APT Macau Main Event: Grant Levy, David Steicke, JJ Liu, Raymond Wu, Alex Kravchenko and Mickey Petersen.

Here is a look at the Top 10 chip counts at the end of Day 1a:

1. Shih Chien Su — 171,800

2. Thomas Ward — 133,600

3. Jackson Zheng — 100,000

4. Grant Levy — 97,000

5. Phil Ivey — 95,000

6. Julian Powell — 81,000

7. Erdenebold Begzjav — 75,000

8. Ozzy Sheikh — 72,000

9. Raymond Wu — 71,000

10. Konstantinos Nanos — 66,500

Ivey has been MIA in the poker world (maybe he has been playing online bingo real money) since delivering a soliloquy prior to the 2011 World Series of Poker where he detailed the reasons he would not be participating in the tournament series.

Tags: Alex Kravchenko, Big Games, Black Friday, Business World, Cash Game, Chien, Jj, Julian Powell, Konstantinos, main event, Phil Ivey, poker tournament, Poker World, Raymond Wu, Real Money, Sheikh, Soliloquy, Thomas Ward, Tom Dwan, World Series of Poker

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