The MILLIONS North America got off to a flying start today with a massive turnout for Day 1A of the MILLIONS Open. This three-day event brought out an impressive field of 586 entries for its first starting flight that included 112 re-entries. The tournament staff showed their professionalism by filling open seats as quickly as possible to make sure that all of the 130 alternates made their way into the field with as little delay as possible.

One of the highlights of the afternoon was certainly when Mike Sexton took a moment to address the crowd. Everyone was happy to hear from one of the most recognizable men in poker today, as he congratulated both the Playground staff and partypoker LIVE team on winning the GPI American Poker Awards event of the year for last year’s edition of the MILLIONS. Mike is one of the players who bagged at the end of the day, so we’re sure to see him on Day 2 of the Open.

Late registration is available for the first nine levels of play on each Day 1 for this event, and the players came out firing. The action was fast and aggressive for most of the afternoon until things cooled off during the last two levels of the day. At that stage, only the short stacks seemed willing to stay aggressive, as most of the big stacks were happy to sit tight and wait to bag chips.

By the time the dust settled at the end of level 12, 197 players bagged chips, averaging just over 2,900,000 chips each. Thanks to the huge number of chips in play, many big stacks emerged from Day 1A, but a handful of players are comfortably ahead of the pack with more than double the chip average waiting in the bag.

Access the full official Day 1 Results List here

Day 1B starts tomorrow at noon, and it promises to be another huge field.

This post was published first on this Playground Event Blog: MILLIONS North America 2018.