While pretty much the entirety of the United States is blanketed by “Winter Storm Hercules” (really, who thought naming winter storms was a good idea?), poker’s elite and droves of online qualifiers have escaped to the sunny climes of Paradise Island, the Bahamas, for the start of the 2014 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure at the Atlantis Hotel.
Traditionally the kickoff to the tournament poker calendar, this is the 11th running of the PCA, which has always been held in its tropical location in the Bahamas. The mixture of sun, poker and a bit of extracurricular activities (21 and over, of course!) has always been popular with the poker community but, as the years have gone by, the tournament has also been the “starting point” for success throughout the year for many a poker player.
For this 11th edition of the PCA, Sunday will be the day that some get into action. The $100,000 Super High Roller will take the stage and, with that massive buy in, only the most deep-pocketed pros will step up. Several of those potential competitors have been Tweeting or Facebooking their arrivals in the Bahamas, including pictures of the Atlantis compound.
Sorel Mizzi tweeted, “First day in paradise. Just got my yoga on and centered my chi! Ready to rock this 100K!” Jonathan Duhamel tweeted a picture of the view from his balcony while saying, “This morning’s coffee on the balcony tastes a little better than last morning’s coffee with snow everywhere!” Poker’s defending World Champion, Ryan Riess, is also ready to get some action going in the Bahamas, writing over Facebook, “its game day, baby! PCA $100K…let’s f*****g go!”
The $100K Super High Roller has been a popular event for the PCA. In last year’s event, 47 entries were received in the tournament (it is a re-entry format) that built a prize pool of more than $5.7 million. The final table featured such players as Dan Shak, Philipp Gruissem and Nick Schulman, but Scott Seiver emerged as the champion after defeating David ‘Doc’ Sands heads up for the $2 million first place prize.
Once the Super High Roller is off today, the meat of the PCA schedule kicks in. Monday is a day for satellite tournaments into the Main Event as well as two Turbo tournaments. On Tuesday, the Main Event will kick off with the first of two Day Ones in what should be a hotly contested tournament. PokerStars, as it did in 2013, has set a $10 million guarantee on the Main Event and that level should be passed easily. Other events over the next week cover the gamut of poker’s disciplines that should offer plenty of poker for those “trapped” on the Paradise Island grounds.
The history of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure reads like a Who’s Who of the poker world. At the inaugural event in 2004 (prior to that time, there was NO poker on Paradise Island, surprisingly), Gus Hansen took the first Main Event title. The United Kingdom’s “Gentleman” John Gale stepped up as the champion in 2005, with Steve Paul-Ambrose (2006), Ryan Daut (2007) and Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier (2008) following him as the Main Event champion.
In 2009, the largest ever PCA Main Event took place as 1347 players stepped up to take on the challenge. Grinding through the large field, Canada’s Poorya Nazari captured the largest-ever first place prize at the PCA Main Event, $3 million, in defeating a final table that included Anthony Gregg, Benny Spindler, Alexandre Gomes, Dustin Dirksen, Dan Heimiller, Peter Tielen and Kevin Saul (strangely, Nazari has only cashed in a tournament once since that win). Harrison Gimbel (2010), Galen Hall (2011), John Dibella (2012) and defending champion Dimitar Danchev round out the roster of elites that have won the PCA Main Event.
As the first tournament of 2014, the eyes of the poker world will be centered on the action in the Bahamas. When the schedule ends on January 13, there should be several stories that will kick off the 2014 tournament poker season in style!
