The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) will kick off on January 5, 2009 and run through January 10 at the Atlantis Hotel and Casino in the Bahamas. The six-day event will again attract many of the world’s best players, many of whom qualified on PokerStars.
The PCA will take a new look into 2009. For the first time, it will become a ‘Festival of Poker’, featuring a series of side events with buy-ins of $1,000, $2,000 and $5,000. Players will also be able to participate in the always popular Battleship of Online Poker as well as the new $25,000 High Roller event, which will take place January 8 and 9.
Those events will go on during the fifth annual PCA Main Event, which has a $10,000 buy-in and could potentially be the biggest PCA field in terms of players and prize pool. More than 625 players have already qualified on the site, with another 120 buying in directly.
Last year’s PCA Main Event champion and PokerStars Team Pro Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier will return to defend his title. Grospellier conquered an arena of 1,136 players on his way to a $2 million first-place prize in 2008. The prize pool was a massive $8.6 million, one of the biggest ever outside of the United States.
“At PCA, you are among the best players in the game at one of the world’s most exotic and luxurious locations to play poker,” said Grospellier. “You really couldn’t ask for a better place to learn more about the game and I can’t wait to go back and defend my title.”
Joining Elky in the Bahamas this year will be PokerStars Team Pros Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker, Daniel Negreanu and Vanessa Rousso, as well as many others who will all be on hand for the PCA Poker Camp. Following the huge success of the first PokerStars Poker Camp at the Barcelona EPT earlier this season, several pros will be providing PCA qualifiers with coaching and hands-on training from January 7-9.
The cost of the Poker Camp Add-on is $1,250, which can be funded by direct buy-in, FPPs or through live satellites. Players will cover topics such as poker math, game theory, multi-tabling, and small ball. The camp will conclude with a final table of camp members that advanced from the two previous days of tournament play.
Satellites to the PCA Main Event are running through Sunday, December 14 on PokerStars. There will also be a super satellite in the Bahamas on Sunday night, January 4. Players that don’t win a seat can buy in directly before the start of the event, as long as the cap of 1,400 players has not been reached.
The ‘Festival of Poker’ will be filmed and broadcast on major networks across North and Latin America, Europe and Russia. The PCA Main Event, High Roller event and World Cup of Poker final will all be broadcast live on www.PokerStars.tv as well as being broadcast as part of the European Poker Tour Season Five TV Series.
