A busy Friday at the 2015 European Poker Tour PokerStars Caribbean Adventure wrapped up late last night with a new champion crowned on the Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) and the conclusion of the second Day One in the PCA Main Event.
$3000 LAPT Bahamas Main Event – Final Day
11 players came back to the felt on Friday looking to lay claim to the latest title on the LAPT, which stunned everyone with the size of the field. Josh Kay came to the tables with the chip lead at 2.54 million, but Jose Carlos Garcia was right behind him with 2.377 million chips. If the closeness of the lead wasn’t enough for Kay, he also had to contend with former PCA Main Event champions Dimitar Danchev and Galen Hall, Martin Finger, Mustafa Kanit, Stefan Jedlicka and others who wanted the same championship.
From the start of the day’s action, the pace was frenetic. Kyle Frey and Aaron Massey, the two short stacks to start Day 3, quickly took their leave from the tables at Paradise Island in the Bahamas while Kay maintained his lead with the final table determined. Hall would be the next to hit the exits in ninth place as Finger did the honors, his A-Q catching a Queen on the flop to defeat Hall’s pocket sevens.
The knockout of Hall seemed to light a fire under Finger. The German would perform his own impersonation of “Demolition Man” as he mowed down player after player at the final table. Kanit and Jonathan Borenstein were the first two to go after squaring off against Finger (in both cases, he would use two red Aces to complete the task) in eighth and seventh places, quickly followed by Danchev and Taylor Paur in sixth and fifth by Finger again. The only player that wasn’t eliminated by Finger, Garcia, found his demise in fourth after battling against Jedlicka.
After the departure of Garcia, Jedlicka and Finger would clash in three straight hands with the outcome each time going the way of Finger. The third hand, after a Finger all-in with pocket sevens, Jedlicka called off his last 500K in chips with A-2 looking to get back in the match. A seven on the flop virtually sealed the hand for Finger and, after a blank on the turn, Finger claimed Jedlicka’s scalp and moved to heads-up against Kay with better than a 2:1 advantage.
Although he had been quiet for the entirety of the final table, Kay suddenly came alive and Finger’s hot streak disappeared. Kay slowly ground his way back into the fray, taking over the lead after flopping a straight against Finger’s two pair. On the final hand, Kay would three-bet Finger pre-flop and, after an 8-9-5 flop, Kay led out and Finger called. A ten came on the turn and, following a Kay check, Finger now fired out at the pot. Kay responded with a raise of his own all-in and, after some contemplation, Finger made the call for his tournament life.
Turning up a Q-10 for top pair, Finger was dismayed to see that Kay had flopped a set with his pocket nines, but there were still some slim outs for the German. Looking for a Jack to give him the topping straight, Finger instead saw a useless Queen come on the river to give him an inadequate two pair and crown Kay the champion of the LAPT Bahamas.
1. Josh Kay, $367,928
2. Martin Finger, $223,900
3. Stefan Jedlicka, $158,740
4. Jose Carlos Garcia, $119,820
5. Taylor Paur, $94,920
6. Dimitar Danchev, $71,780
7. Jonathan Borenstein, $51,540
8. Mustapha Kanit, $35,200
9. Galen Hall, $27,820
10. Aaron Massey, $22,760
Following his stirring victory, Kay admitted to the PokerStars Blog team that his plan was to “pretty much let everybody else battle” at the final table. That “hang out until the end” plan worked wonders for the Michigan native as he took the title of one of the biggest LAPT events in the tour’s history.
$10,000 PCA Main Event – Day 1B
After a quiet Day 1A that saw only 220 players step up for the festivities, Day 1B brought the runners out in droves. 587 players comprised the Day 1B field, making for a total field of 807 players that built a prize pool of more than $8 million (as of press time, no information has been released regarding the pay scale or the first place prize).
With more than double the players than its counterpart, it was obvious that Day 1B would create the overall chip leader heading to Day 2 on Saturday. That fortunate individual will be Dietrich Fast, who finished off his Friday of work with 208,200 in chips to vastly outpace Day 1A leader Alex Millar’s 169,100 chips. In fact, the second place stack from Day 1B, Konstantinos Pantaridis, also would pass Millar in putting together a stack of 184,800.
With the two Day Ones now coming together, there are a host of notable names that are looking to make their move up the leaderboard. Coming out of Day 1B, Stephen Chidwick (101,000), Randal Flowers (89,500), Daniel Negreanu (85,400) and Pratyush Buddiga (84,300) are stacked decently, while Day 1A’s Dani Stern (145,200), Owen Crowe (121,000), Naoya Kihara (108,100) and Chris Moneymaker (97,200) are ready to get back to the tables.
The 368 survivors of Day 1B will combine with the 139 rested players from Day 1A to create a 507-player roster for the start of Day 2. The drama will only build through the weekend as, by Monday, the money bubble should pop and the cash will start flowing from the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event.
