On Thursday night, the final eight-man table was determined in the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event. Online poker pro Chris “Gettin Daize” Oliver will hold over 40% of the chips in play when the action picks back up on Saturday afternoon. He has lead nearly wire-to-wire in the $10,000 buy-in poker tournament and a top prize of $2.3 million is on the line.
Dmitriy Stelmak was the PCA Main Event’s Bubble Boy. Stelmak 5bet all-in on a flop of 6-6-A and Oliver made the call. When the hands were revealed, Stelmak tabled A-K for aces-up, while Oliver held 7-6 for trip sixes. A seven on the turn improved Oliver to a full house, leaving Stelmak drawing to a bullet on the river. Instead, the king of hearts fell as the final card of Thursday’s action and, just like that, the 2011 PCA Main Event’s final table was determined.
The last woman standing, Ana Marquez, was the chip leader entering Day 5 on Thursday, but met her maker at the tail end of play. Marquez open-shoved all-in for 1.4 million at blinds of 50,000-100,000 with pocket eights and received a taker in Oliver, who held pocket aces. The board came Q-10-5-6-10 and Marquez took $155,000 back to Spain for her 10th place finish.
All eyes at the Atlantis Hotel and Casino in the Bahamas, the site of the PCA, were on 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker, who held the second largest stack entering yesterday’s session. However, like Marquez, Moneymaker could not hold on until the final table and departed in 11th place. “The Man Who Started it All” ran K-6 into Galen Hall’s A-6 on his final hand after the money went in before the flop. He found a king on the turn to take a temporary lead in the hand, but Hall re-sucked on the river when an ace hit. Moneymaker collected $130,000 for his five-day run.
Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers doubled up in the waning moments of the tournament’s play down day after his pocket kings held against Michael Pesek’s pocket jacks. The board ran out five cards 10 or lower and Sowers doubled up to 4.9 million. He ended the day around 3.6 million, with the entire field staring in the face of Oliver’s mountain of nearly 20 million in chips. Pesek was eliminated shortly thereafter in 12th place.
Who is Oliver, you ask? He’s a former #1 player in the PocketFives.com Online Poker Rankings and owns a pair of Monthly PLB titles on that site. His online accolades include wins in the PokerStars Sunday 500 last April for $87,000, the Full Tilt Poker $1K Monday last June for $83,000, and the UB.com $200,000 Guaranteed for $44,000. He told PokerStars officials that if he takes home the $2.3 million top prize, he’d be buying a house.
Here are the chip stacks of the eight players left standing in the 2011 PCA Main Event:
1. Chris “Gettin Daize” Oliver – 19,670,000
2. Galen “GasparLeMarc” Hall – 6,430,000
3. Sam “KingKobeMVP” Stein – 5,855,000
4. Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers – 3,685,000
5. Anton Ionel – 3,520,000
6. Max “$Kill Game” Weinberg – 3,350,000
7. Bolivar “Ramux” Palacios – 2,445,000
8. Philippe Plouffe – 1,555,000
The blinds were at 50,000-100,000 with an ante of 10,000 when play paused. Here are the prizes up for grabs. Every player remaining is guaranteed to take home at least $202,000:
1st Place: $2,300,000
2nd Place: $1,800,000
3rd Place: $1,350,000
4th Place: $1,000,000
5th Place: $700,000
6th Place: $450,000
7th Place: $300,000
8th Place: $202,000
You can catch the action starting at 5:00pm ET on Saturday on ESPN3.com, which will show unedited coverage of the final table complete with hole cards on a one-hour delay. At 10:00pm ET, ESPN2 will join the broadcast in progress. Poker fans outside of the United States can tune in to PokerStars.tv for the same feed. Commentary and analysis will come from a potpourri of talent including James Hartigan, David Tuchman, Lon McEachern, David Williams, Chad Brown, and Daniel Negreanu.
We’ll have complete 2011 PCA Main Event results for you right here on Poker News Daily.