Former Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP), World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP), and Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) titleholder Shaun Deeb headlines the six-handed final table of the $5,000 Bounty Shootout at the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA).
The finale is slated for Sunday at the Atlantis Hotel and Casino in the Bahamas. Deeb’s first-round table featured a variety of fellow online poker pros, including David “cairns1987” Cairns, Alex “AWice” Wice, Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka, Toby “810ofclubs” Lewis, and Dean Lyall. The champion of the Bounty Shootout, which featured 36 players on Day 2, will bank a $200,000 winner-take-all top prize.
The tournament began on Day 1 with 216 players. That day, Deeb faced off against new Full Tilt Poker pro Peter Jetten and online poker pro Josh “brikdog24” Brikis, among others.
Deeb’s FTOPS victory came in late 2008, when he won a Heads-Up event for $115,000. One month later, he was back at it again, this time taking down a $300 Rebuy Pot Limit Omaha WCOOP tournament for $144,000. Last September, he claimed another WCOOP title in the series’ Two-Day Event for $243,000, his largest online score ever.
Deeb’s SCOOP win came in April 2009 and was good for over $90,000. Other wins for Deeb include the PokerStars $100 Rebuy, PokerStars Nightly Hundred Grand, Sunday Warm-Up, Super Tuesday, and the Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guaranteed. In late 2009, Deeb briefly walked away from full-time tournament grinding and has since returned in force.
Deeb is fresh off a $73,000 cash in a $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha Eight or Better event at the PCA and may now add a Bounty Shootout title to his war chest. Joining him at tomorrow’s final table will be former UB.com pro Michael Binger, who sent his brother, Nick Binger, to the rails as part of Day 2 of the tournament. Also at the Binger family’s talented second round table were Eric whitE_mAmbA Ladny, Johan “busto_soon” Van Til, Hungary’s Marton Czuczor, and Canadian PokerStars pro Greg Debora.
Also vying for the $200,000 Bounty Shootout top prize will be Andrew Chen, Scott Baumstein, Marko Neumann, and William Pilossoph. Deeb owns seven bounties to lead the field in that department; the player with the most number of knockouts will take home an extra $25,000. The tournament was filmed in two flights on Day 2 and will air as part of ESPN’s coverage of the 2011 PCA.
Other players who entered the $5,000 Bounty Shootout, but did not survive to reach the final table, included North American Poker Tour (NAPT) L.A. Bounty Shootout champ Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin, Durrrr Challenge competitor Dan “jungleman12” Cates, PokerStars pro Jason Mercier, and Viktor “Isildur1” Blom.
The 2011 PCA Main Event final table is currently ongoing from the Bahamas and airing on ESPN2. At the time of writing, Chris “Gettin Daize” Oliver leads Galen Hall and Anton Ionel in three-handed action with a $2.3 million top prize there for the taking. We’ll have full results for you on Sunday right here on Poker News Daily.