Early Friday morning, the final table for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event was determined, with Faraz Jaka holding a slim lead over Kyle Julius and Xuan Liu after the longest day of play yet in the tournament.
It all started Thursday afternoon with the final 24 survivors from the 1072 player field. Jaka has been dominating the action throughout the last couple of days of the tournament as he looked to take down his first ever major tournament championship. Other challengers for the crown at the start of action on Thursday included several notable online players including Alex “Assassinato” Fitzgerald, Phil “takechip” D’Auteuil and Ruben “rubenrtv” Visser.
Barely thirty minutes into action, two of the contenders for the championship were eliminated from the tournament. Danny Chevalier had been looking to double up his short stack on three different occasions, but the fourth proved to be his demise when his A-10 failed to catch Daniel Shiff’s pocket Kings. Visser would take out the next combatant on the following hand, when his pocket Queens held up to Alex Venovski’s Big Slick.
While the action from the first level of play continued, Jaka and Liu both were active. Jaka wielded the big stack masterfully, while Liu continued her slow, grinding style that has worked extremely well for her throughout this tournament. By the end of the first level of play, Jaka still held the lead while Liu was moving up the leaderboard.
As the next couple of levels played out, Jaka made what seemed to be his first stumble of the PCA Main Event. D’Auteuil was able to cut a big chunk of Jaka’s chips from him when he flopped a set of Jacks. Even with that defeat, Jaka still held around 1.5 million in chips, more than enough to continue to fight.
Visser was a one man wrecking crew as the tournament wore on. He would eliminate Maksim Semisoshenko (20th) and Charles Furey (19th) in virtually back to back hands to catapult himself over the 2.4 million chip mark. After taking a good sized pot from Julius, Ruben Visser had moved into the chip lead when play reached two tables.
Jaka began to right the ship at this time, taking out Sam Greenwood in fifteenth place to get his stack back up to near the three million mark. Liu also began to make her move at this stage of the event, knocking out Alex Fitzgerald in fourteenth when her A-Q (against Fitzgerald’s suited K-10) flopped trip Aces. With the knockout, Liu moved into the lead with over 4.4 million in chips.
Visser and Liu were on the same table and it wasn’t long until the duo would go to battle. After a raise from Xuan, Ruben defended his blind to see a Q-2-8 flop, which both checked. The twosome checked down the Ace on the turn and the five on the river, at which point Visser showed his A-6 of spades. It was good enough to beat Liu and put both players at the top of the leaderboard, separated by a scant number of chips.
The chip lead continued to float around the two tables as the play dragged into the night. Julius was able to take the lead for a short time after taking a big pot against John Dibella, but Liu fought back almost immediately (against Visser again) to reassume the lead. Julius would strike again soon after that, eliminating Shiff in twelfth place to jump over the seven million chip mark.
After five hours of play at two tables, the unofficial nine handed final table was determined with the elimination of Martin Jacobsen in tenth by Liu. The top three when the table began were Julius, Liu and Jaka, and those three players would maintain their positions, albeit with some shifting. Once Dibella put a bad beat on Lee Goldman (Dibella’s pocket nines caught a set on the river against Goldman’s pocket Kings) to eliminate him in ninth place, the final table was determined:
Seat 1: Mark Drover, 1.43 million
Seat 2: Anthony Gregg, 1.16 million
Seat 3: David Bernstein, 1.96 million
Seat 4: Ruben Visser, 4.4 million
Seat 5: Faraz Jaka, 6.47 million
Seat 6: John Dibella, 3.465 million
Seat 7: Xuan Liu, 6.355 million
Seat 8: Kyle Julius, 6.45 million
This final table promises to be an exciting one as Jaka, Julius and Liu have solid credentials on the live tournament circuit. Liu is looking to prove that she is an up and coming force in the tournament poker world, following up on her excellent third place performance in last year’s European Poker Tour event in San Remo, Italy in April. Jaka, as previously stated, is looking for his first major championship, while Julius will earn his largest ever payday in his poker career here in the Bahamas. Don’t count out Dibella or Visser, however, as they have proven to be resilient throughout the PCA Main Event.
The eight players will play down to a champion beginning at 1PM (Bahamas time) this afternoon, with PokerStars providing a live internet feed of the proceedings beginning at 1:40PM. By sometime this evening, the champion (and winner of a $2 million payday) will be determined in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event.
