The European Poker Tour (EPT) PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) saw the money bubble burst Tuesday. With that plateau out of the way, players used Wednesday to not only climb up the pay ladder, but also to position themselves for a run at the final table. The field was narrowed from 64 to 24 on Day 4 and returning to the top of hill with 4.114 million chips was a familiar name: Faraz Jaka, who led the tournament after Day 2.
Those of you who read our summary of the PCA Day 2 may remember that Faraz Jaka’s online screen name is “The Toilet.” If that was the first time you had ever seen that, you may have thought what we first thought: “Really? That’s what he wants to be known as? The Toilet?”
It seems odd, immature, and maybe a bit inappropriate. As it turns out, though, the back story behind the name is very tame and actually pretty clever. In his days as a poker greenhorn at the University of Illinois, Jaka played in low stakes live games. As most of us probably were when we were beginners (or still are), he was drawn to suited hole cards. He played any two suited cards so often that his friends nicknamed him “The Toilet” because he was always trying to draw to a flush. He took it as a badge of honor and began using the name online.
Jaka’s run back to the top of the chip counts was not a gradual one. He didn’t pick up a few chips here and a few chips there, but rather made his moves in big chunks. He started the day in great shape with 1.22 million chips, good for third place. About three hours into play, he eliminated Sam Chartier, grabbing 149,000 chips. Right after that, he dispatched Eddy Sabat for another 300,000, taking his stack up to 2 million. Twenty minutes later, he got Martin Jacobson to call a half million chip bet on the river with the board reading 3c-2h-Ah-Qs-4h. Jaka had Jh-9h, giving him his namesake hand and his chip stack swelled to 2.8 million.
A bit more than an hour later, not long after a break, Jaka scooped his biggest pot of the day. Lawrence Greenberg raised pre-flop and Jaka called. After the flop of Tc-3d-5s, Jaka checked, Greenberg called, and Jaka called. Upon viewing a turn of the 5h, Jaka put out a 30,000 chip bet, only to see Greenberg raise it to 130,000. At that, Jaka moved all-in and Greenberg called, putting himself all-in, as he was covered. Greenberg had made the right call, holding Ad-Td for top pair versus Jaka’s 2h-4h (hey, suited cards!), which gave him an open-ended straight draw. Unfortunately for Greenberg, the draw came through for Jaka, as the 6d fell on the river and Jaka was up to 3.75 million chips.
Jaka finished off the night by eliminating Barry Greenstein and elevating his stack to over 4 million.
Play will pick back up again on Thursday at noon as the final 8-handed table will be determined.
2012 European Poker Tour PokerStars Caribbean Adventure – End of Day 4 Chip Counts
Faraz Jaka – 4,114,000
Alex Fitzgerald – 2,709,000
Phil D’Auteuil – 2,280,000
Anthony Gregg – 2,142,000
Byron Kaverman – 2,136,000
Sam Greenwood – 2,109,000
Kyle Julius – 1,818,000
Lee Goldman – 1,760,000
Martin Jacobson – 1,627,000
Maksim Semisoshenko – 1,446,000
John Dibella – 1,406,000
Mark Drover – 1,383,000
Daniel Schmieding – 1,309,000
David Bernstein – 1,160,000
Xuan Liu – 1,082,000
David Granados – 980,000
Daniel Shiff – 834,000
Alex Venovski – 592,000
Corey Burbick – 551,000
Ruben Visser – 461,000
David Peters – 424,000
Charles Furey – 379,000
Danny Chevalier – 302,000
Nikolaos Alafogiannis – 221,000