Since its inception, there has been 278 Sunday Millions run with a total of 2,116,513 entries and USD $444,149,600 in prize money. Daryl “aaaaaa” Jace took out the inaugural Sunday Million from almost 6000 runners on March 5, 2006 for USD $173,844 in prize money.

Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier told PokerStars Blog he has fond memories of the tournament. “When I think of the Sunday Million, I think back to being a 19-21 year old kid, grinding mid-stakes, looking for that big tournament score. I would get excited every week to play the Sunday Million, hoping that would be the day that I would have my first six-figure score,” said Mercier.

For more details check out PokerStars.com.

It’s interesting to read another viewpoint on the matter and it’s the polar opposite of Negreanu’s. Brusnon writes, “I’ve been in contact with Lederer the last few months. When someone I’ve known for years, trusted and respected looks me dead in the eye and says he didn’t know about the financial problems, call me a big old Texas sucker because I will believe them. I have not talked to Ferguson but I understand he says what Lederer told me, that they didn’t know.”

He later adds, directly referring to Negreanu’s suggested punishment for the three directors, “I don’t want to take a baseball bat and crush their grapes and I don’t want to keep them from rejoining the poker world. Where do you stop the level of responsibility? I don’t know, I only know all of the FT people were my friends and they still are.”

It’s certainly a calmer and more trusting take on the situation but one that many in the poker world seem to disagree with. You can read more at DoyleBrunson.com.

Arce has an impressive poker resume behind him. He shot to fame in 2009 when he took out the APT Philippines title for USD $185,000 and later grabbed a PokerStars sponsorship. He has since backed it up with some big cashes in Asian High Roller events including a 4^th place at APPT Macau 2009 for USD $84,223 and a 2^nd place in the 2011 Macau Poker Cup one for USD $50,868.

But Arce isn’t just a poker player, he also has business interests including piece of the action at the venue for the DICC – Metro Card Club – the biggest poker room in the Philippines. Towards the end of last year, there was a rumour floating around that Arce had sold off his share in Metro and other changes were afoot at the club.

We’ll let Arce tell you whether any of it was true…

Many players here will know about the DICC already but maybe you can just give a bit of background on what the tournament is all about?

The DICC basically started when poker wasn’t too big here in the Philippines around six years ago. It was in my house actually. I just invited people for a poker tournament for my birthday. This was when there was no poker at all in the country except for home games. So we did a tournament at my house with no rake and a group of 50 people and that’s how it started. Then once we started at Metro we just had a small tournament and then every year it increased and we started putting in guarantees. It went up to PHP 3 million and now PHP 5 million. It has become a really big event in the country now.

Yeah I have noticed that the prize pool guarantees have been going up each year. Is that going to continue?

Hopefully. It always depends on the market though.

The buy-in this time is also bigger, PHP 10k instead of PHP 5k, what’s the reason behind this change and what effect do you think that will have?

We have moved the guarantee from three to five million so we wanted the competition to be a bit heavier, have people to play more seriously and work for it. Even though we have doubled the buy-in we are giving more free seats everywhere.  We’re giving out seats on TV, Twitter, the internet and on radio shows. So there are a lot of ways to win seats.

And we are giving out a lot of seats on satellites. It’s double the amount of seats we gave last time. We are spending more on this tournament than we did last time. I don’t even think more than a hundred people will buy-in as walk-ins because of the amount of satellite tournaments and free seats we are giving out everywhere.

Yeah you guys have been giving away a lot seats in your daily tournaments, but we have seen some players post on forums their concerns that the prize pools were being taken away too much by the seats. Would you like to comment on that?

You know, whatever anyone does, whether it’s good or bad, there are going to be some players complaining. And I understand that. That’s why instead of lessening the seats we do more guarantees. Did you see that? We’re giving out more money now. I understand the player complaints but we are spending more money than last time.

I’ve recently heard a rumour that Metro Card Club has undergone a few changes recently and that you had actually sold your share in the club. Is that right?

No, that’s not true at all. Those are just rumours. It’s funny, I took a two-month vacation. I played poker from January to October six times a week and half of November and I just felt a bit burnt out. At the time, I think I needed a break and that I wasn’t playing well so I took seven trips out of Manila. Basically I was on vacation for two months and the rumours started spreading. It was really funny.

Along with those rumours we also heard that Wally Sombero was going to take over things at Metro…

We take advice from Wally all the time. He is one of my mentors and we gave Wally a room in the Metro. But everything is still the same, nobody else is taking over. We have always asked Wally for advice – he knows a lot of stuff – but as far as paperwork and decisions being made it is still the same.

Has Empire Poker Club’s closing impacted positively on you guys? Because you were in strong competition with them for a while there, weren’t you?

You can quote me on this – it was never a ‘strong competition’. It’s still the same. They never really hit us, actually. They tried but never did.

April is going to be a huge month for tournament poker in the Philippines with APT Philippines and APPT Cebu, are you looking forward to them?

APPT I will go for sure but APT we’ll see. I have a lot of different businesses besides poker.

Can you tell me a bit more about those?

Let’s just focus on poker.

Okay, well you’re also in Macau a lot playing poker – what’s your take on the PokerStars Macau situation with them having to move out of Casino Grand Lisboa?

PokerStars will be PokerStars. They are the biggest and they will be the biggest for a long time. I don’t think it’s going to hurt them. Wherever they transfer, people are going to follow so it’s more of a loss for Grand Lisboa rather than PokerStars.

Do you ever stay in Macau for longer and sit down on big cash games there?

You know what, I play cash games in the Philippines almost every day so when I’m in Macau I play the tournament and then I relax. It’s a sort of a vacation for me. I would rather just stay away from the cash games and enjoy my vacation.

Who would you rate as some of the top players in the Philippines?

You know, the competition in the Philippines is very tight now. There are a lot of good players. But, you know, I have no names in mind. Honestly, literally a lot of the players are on par and basically it’s down to focus and the will to win during that tournament. For me, heart is very important. Luck is there but heart during that tournament makes a difference.

Are you expecting any big players in the DICC?

If international players play I will be very happy but more than anything else I just want everybody to have fun. We started this business to have fun and the Metro is all about fun. Most poker rooms in this country are in it to try to make money but we are here because we want everybody to have fun. We are still having fun and that will keep us going.

During the DICC if only two players play and they will have fun, then I’d rather that than 1000 players play and just complain about the tournament. Plus it’s my birthday and we are all supposed to have fun!

As previously reported, the Mega Million Main Event is DafaPoker’s biggest tournament to date with a CNY 1 million (USD $158,000) maximum prize pool. What makes this event unique is that during the event, players will initially compete online, but when the field whittles down to 30 players the tournament will resume in a live setting during the Asian Poker Tour (APT) Macau tournament in late July. Additionally, each of the qualifying players will receive a USD $500 package which includes transportation, accommodation and spending allowance.

With this format, the qualifying online players will have the exciting chance to meet some of the best poker players in the region and participate in the APT, one of Asia’s most prestigious tournament organisers.

There are a variety of ways to qualify for this big event, all of which do not have a cash buy-in fee. Instead, players will be required to use their accumulated Gold Coins (GC) or tokens to sign up.

For existing DafaPoker players, there are several ways to enter:

- Daily Mega Million Qualifier with a buy-in fee of 5 GC or Token
- SNG Mega Million Qualifier with buy-in fees ranging from 10-50 GC
- Weekly Mega Million Qualifier with a buy-in fee of 7,500 GC or Token
- Monthly Mega Super Satellite with a buy-in fee of 30,000 GC or Token

For newly registered DafaPoker players, there is the New Player Mega Daily Freeroll. Winning players will receive 2 tokens as prizes to be used towards the next steps leading up to the Mega Million Main Event.

For the full schedule and details of the satellites, check out DafaPoker as well as their newly launched mini sites at www.mmdzpk.com and www.1mpuke.com.

The norm with these kind of releases is to also announce a new venue at the same time but it’s likely that the approaching Macau Millions on March 23 forced the hand of PokerStars Macau early. While initial rumours had suggested that PokerStars Macau was moving across the road to Hotel Lisboa, World Gaming Magazine sources later suggested that the poker room was instead heading further afield to the Cotai Strip’s City of Dreams (COD).

This scenario seemed the less likely of the two options considering that the COD complex already had a previous foray into poker in the form of the Hard Rock Poker Lounge that closed mid-2011. However, this latest rumour appears to be gaining some weight.

According to a Poker Portal Asia source, PokerStars Macau has been shopping out their proposal to many of Macau’s casinos and COD might be interested in giving poker another try. Details of the deal would likely see PokerStars Macau guaranteeing a certain number of tournaments and players each year while leaving the cash tables under COD control.

In line with regulations imposed by Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (DICJ), a casino must have an operating cash poker room within the premises in order to hold poker tournaments. However, having poker tables is a dilemma for casinos in Macau, which are under restrictions for the amount of total gaming tables they allowed to operate. Other games such as baccarat are far more profitable than poker for the casino and the table cap appeared to be the reason for previously closing the Hard Rock Poker Lounge.

PokerStars Macau has a policy of refusing to comment on rumours before making official announcements but we will endeavour to get confirmation when Poker Portal Asia visits PokerStars Macau for live reporting of the Macau Poker Cup: Red Dragon Main Event on February 23-27, 2012.

We’ll keep you updated on PokerStars Macau’s search for a new home as details come to hand.