The Main Event of the inaugural PokerStars Championship stop is underway; Sunday saw the completion of Day 1A of the PokerStars Championship Bahamas Main Event while Day 1B is currently running at Atlantis Paradise Island. A total of 229 players showed up for the first starting flight of the formerly named PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and James Martyn emerged as the leader of the 112 surviving players, finishing the night with 197,400 chips.
Martyn really got going in the final level of Sunday’s action, Level 8. With only 46,500 chips near the start of the level, he confidently raised to 1,400 chips pre-flop with pocket Aces and had to be thrilled to see Andrey Zaichenko re-raise him to 4,500. Action folded back around to Martyn, who four-bet to 13,500. Zaichenko then moved all-in and obviously Martyn snap-called, his Aces destroying Zaichenko’s K-T (oops). A Ten did flop, but Zaichenko got no more help and doubled-up Martyn, whose stack increased to 93,000.
That is the biggest update we have on Martyn’s rise to the top, but clearly he had one heck of a Level 8, as from there, he added more than 100,000 additional chips.
Also moving on to Day 2 are such names as Gaelle Baumann, Daniel Colman, Igor Kurganov, Jason Mercier, Justin Bonomo, Isaac Haxton, and 2016 GPI and Cardplayer Player of the Year David Peters.
Not returning on Tuesday is one of the hottest actors and comedians on the planet, Kevin Hart. After needing to shove his short stack (that is not a joke about his height) with a lowly Deuce-Six, he told the PokerNews crew, “Tell them that I went down swinging.”
Folks, Kevin Hart fought valiantly and went down swinging.
Another group of Championship hopefuls is still playing on Day 1B; we’ll see how things pan out tomorrow.
2017 PokerStars Championship Bahamas – Day 1A Chip Leaders
1. James Martyn – 197,400
2. Brad Marsh – 173,200
3. Andre Crooks – 160,400
4. Rodrigo Cordoba – 156,400
5. Mikko Turtiainen – 155,100
6. Alan Schein – 140,100
7. Daniel Colman – 136,100
8. Igor Kurganov – 121,000
9. Adrian Mateos – 120,900
10. Gaelle Baumann – 119,200
Also on Sunday, Jason Koon won the $100,000 Super High Roller event at the PokerStars Championship Bahamas, beating a field of 54 to win $1,650,300, the largest prize of his live tournament career. The final table was absolutely stacked. The chip leader was Charlie Carrel, who had over $1 million in winnings from November through December, Daniel Colman, Daniel Dvoress, Connor Drinan, Byron Kaverman, and Bryn Kenney. Then again, I suppose the strength of the final table is to be expected in a High Roller, as there aren’t typically many low-stakes amateurs in these events.
According to PokerNews, Carrel went into heads-up with a 2-to-1 chip lead, but Koon made a huge play on the river of a hand with the board reading K-K-6-5-9, the last four cards all diamonds. He had check-raised the flop, bet large on the turn, and moved all-in on the river, forcing Carrel to fold. He didn’t reveal what he had, but he said afterward that he was “repping at worst a very good king.”
From there, Koon didn’t look back and took down the title.
