The 2014 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event reached the money during action on Friday and, by the time the chips were bagged up for the night, British pro Max Silver had moved into the lead as one of only three players over one million chips.
At the start of action on Friday, Pascal Lefrancois was atop the leaderboard with 214 other players in pursuit of him. The first task facing the survivors, however, was to reach the 151 players who would actually take home a payday from the 2014 PCA. Early eliminations included Athanasios Polychronopoulos, Taylor Paur, Joe Cassidy (who lost a race against Liv Boeree for his tournament life) and Day Two contender Christopher Ulsrud. The Ulsrud matchup was a particularly interesting one as it brought a new leader to the helm.
Ulsrud saw a three handed flop of A-9-4 and, after the action checked to Kyle Sorel and he bet, Ulsrud popped out a three bet that forced the third player from the hand. Sorel, however, wasn’t going anywhere as he responded with a four bet of his own. Ulsrud pushed in his remaining stack of 330K and Sorel made the call, tabling an A-9 for top two pair against Ulsrud’s Big Slick. Running threes would complete the board and the hand would go to Sorel, who leapt into the lead as Ulsrud headed for the exits.
While Sorel soared, others walked out of the Atlantis Hotel’s poker room with nothing to show for their efforts. Amanda Musumeci and Dario Mineri were the most notable names to fall as the money bubble approached and, once Zo Karim knocked off Andreas Kynsveen in 152nd place ($0), the remaining players were in the money.
Following the bursting of the money bubble, the players began to flow out of the arena. Jared Hamby, Jason Mercier, Ole Schemion, and Antonio Esfandiari were a few of the notables to walk off with some money. In a particularly interesting hand, Vanessa Selbst knocked off David ‘ODB’ Baker (pocket Queens versus pocket eights) to push her name into contention on the leaderboard, but the day belonged to Silver.
Silver would push his stack over the 660K mark in eliminating Alexander Condon before the money bubble and he wouldn’t drop under that mark the rest of the day. He slowly built that stack over one million and, by the time the last cards were dealt for the evening, he was one of three men who had eclipsed that milestone:
1. Max Silver, 1.453 million
2. Roger Teska, 1.406 million
3. Kyle Sorel, 1.132 million
4. Renato Almeida, 927,000
5. Vanessa Selbst, 911,000
6. Yuri Martins, 884,000
7. Madis Muur, 835,000
8. Shyam Srinivasan, 811,000
9. Mark Ioli, 792,000
10. Jorgen Sandvoll Lindebo, 781,000
Other players who were prominent on the Day Two leaderboard also fared pretty well during the Day Three action. Sam Greenwood (12th, 760,000), former “November Niner” Antoine Saout (14th, 668,000), Jude Ainsworth (16th, 618,000), Matt Berkey (18th, 607,000), Vladimir Schemelev (19th, 578,000) and Jennifer Shahade (25th, 457,000) will be prime contenders to move up during Saturday’s Day Four action.
It could be a quick day for the players on Saturday, giving them plenty of time to enjoy the Atlantis’ facilities. Plans for today look to knock the 72 remaining players down to either two or three tables, depending on how quick the action goes, and Sunday’s play will take the field to the final table. The champion will be crowned on Monday, who will walk off with a payday of $1,820,420 and the title of PokerStars Caribbean Adventure champion.
