GOP Manila 2026: Main Event Heats Up and Finishes With Small Overlay

The crown jewel of the 2026 Gods of Poker Manila live poker festival at the City of Dreams Manila Luxury Hotel Resort & Casino in Metro Manila was looking into the abyss with a large overlay looming for the flagship PHP 30 Million guaranteed Main Event. Only two starting flights remained and 400 players were needed to reach the guarantee in the PHP 82,500 buy-in.

Two flights remained both featuring the Cronus Structure with three hours of play each at 120 and 60 big blinds respectively, before moving to a turbo format after each respective late registration had concluded. Only one table was running for Flight D but it ballooned into a very healthy field of 110 entries with the top 15 finishers set to advance.

All those bowing out had one more chance in the evening as of 6 p.m. local time and the final chance heat produced a near identical field of 106 entries with as many hopefuls advancing as earlier on. The Arena of Champions delivered in the capital of the Philippines and a total of 383 entries emerged - 17 entries short of the guarantee to provide extra value for all those in contention.

It took until late in the evening for Flight D to burst the bubble and none other than John Tech ended up as the bubble. He had been trolling the other table several times before, claiming more players had busted or there was a three-way all-in - Stevie Moon had aces and doubled through Young Min Kang ... before Moon had aces again and Tech's jacks let the bubble burst.

Mc Yeldarb Mantos

Kang's monster stack of 2,398,000 was not even the lead for this flight, as Mc Yeldarb Mantos had 2,609,000 to claim the lead overall. Another two players had a seven-figure stack including Dakota Anderson and Renniel Galvez whereas Flight C bubble boy Kenneth Isip advanced, as did high-stakes place Emmanuel Derecho albeit with the shortest stack.

End of Flight D Chip Counts:

There was one more chance for players to lock up a portion of the cash prize pool and some of the most well-known local poker pros were involved such as Lester Edoc, Richard "Hot Sauce" Marquez, Mike Takayama, and Marc Rivera were in the mix.

Takayama came close to reaching the money but lost a flip to Spain's Francisco Zufia. Hayato Kitajima flopped middle set with pocket queens but the ace-jack of Hernan Villa held for broadway, as the player from Japan left with a smile and "nice hand".

Then there was also the always enthusiastic Rudy Edenata, who has a GOP gauntlet to his name already. He had a very swingy day but ultimately fell short with ace-jack against the -king-queen of Zufia.

Ryan Hong lost all of his shrinking chips within two hands and was eliminated two spots away from the money in the third flight for this tournament, after which the blinds had already reached 30,000-60,000. The average dropped to nine big blinds and it became a tense waiting game.

Flight E bubble boy Jeorge Lagatuz

Ultimately, a three-way all-in brought it all to an end past two in the morning. Jeorge Lagatuz jammed with ace-king off suit and Yohn Paredes called all-in with pocket aces - his third premium pair during the bubble period - while Fendy Kosasih looked up both with pocket jacks. The board ran out ten-high and Paredes tripled, Lagatuz was the last casualty without a cash.

End-of-Flight E Chip Counts:

All together, that leaves 54 survivors across the five starting flights and they return at 12.30 p.m. local time. The dynamics will certainly be very different as the blinds roll all the way back to 5,000-10,000/10,000 with an average of more than 80 big blinds. The penultimate tournament day will try to play all the way down to the nine-handed final table, which may or may not be possible given the very deep structure.

Side Event Stories From Day 7

Having a day off from the Main Event, Flight B chip leader Rodolfo Dela Fuente won a PHP 22,000 NLHE Side Event for PHP 144,000 to boost his confidence for the next proceedings. Japan's Teruo Iwasaki earned a Single High-Roller Trophy while the Influencer Conquest was won by a team including David Erquiaga and Anton Del Rosario.

Prior to missing out on the money in the Main Event, Ryan Hong won a PHP 22,000 Titan Stack Turbo trophy and Joris Michl prevailed in the Single Draw Mix. Trophy number six of the festival went to Martijn Gerrits in Hyper Turbo Super Hold'em and Mark Marriott was a repeat winner, as was Indonesia's Steven.

The Main Event will be the big draw for Day 8 but several other Side Events await such as the GOP X ZSOP Mini Main with a PHP 3.5 Million guarantee. The full schedule can be found on the GOP website right here.