Rumors that Ivey was in town had run rampant for a couple of days after a photo began circulating showing his name on the wait list for a $300/$600 cash game.
After an hour or two of more rumors and waiting on the tournament floor, the return became official as Ivey’s name appeared on the registration list and he sat down just into level 2.
Playing like the same old Ivey, he was active in plenty of pots and built up a substantial chip stack of around 95k before falling back a bit near the end of the day.
Still, he’s on to Day 2 and will return to action with about 51,000 chips – more or less in the middle of the pack.
Of the 269 players who sat down for the main event yesterday on Day 1a, about 155 made it through with Shih Chieh Su holding the chip lead at around 170,000.
Day 1b action begins later today (12:10 Thursday in Macau) with Day 2 set for tomorrow.
Other notables making it through to Day 2 include PokerStars Team Online member Mickey “mement_mori” Petersen, Team PokerStars Pros Alex Kravchenko and Raymond Wu, Eric Liu and high-roller specialist David Steicke.
Tom Dwan, Patrick Antonius and several other pros have also been spotted in Macau over the last week with Dwan reportedly losing over $2.6 million in cash-game action.
For live updates from Macau, check the PokerStars blog.
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