2013 PCA Side Events: Luske, Rowsome and Racener Earn Titles

January 16, 2013

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure just concluded its tenth year and once again proved itself one of the most prestigious stops on the circuit. The 2013 PCA, which took place at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, recently wrapped up and saw Scott Seiver lay claim to a $2,003,480 first-place prize in the $100,000 Super High Roller; Dimitar Danchev's win in the prestigious $10,000 Main Event for $1,859,000; and Vanessa Selbst win the $25,000 High Roller for $1,424,420.

All the while, several preliminary events took place each day. Forty-one tournaments played out at the 2013 PCA, but not all got the same amount of love as the aforementioned events did. We already touched upon some of those events last week (John Dibella won Event #3 and Peter Jetten won the popular Open Face Chinese event), but we thought we would conclude our PCA coverage with a look at some other notable preliminary winners.

Zakharau Wins The $5K PLO

It doesn’t take long for a Turbo tournament to finish, especially when it’s pot-limit Omaha. Case in point, Event #9 $5,000 PLO Turbo, which attracted 38 players and created a prize pool of $184,300. After a day of enjoyable play, Belarusian Uladzimir Zakharau claimed his first live cash by claiming victory over a final table that included November Niner Jospeh Cheong and Leif Force, who finished 11th in the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event for $1,154,527 and won a bracelet this summer. Zakharau earned $68,200 for his win.

2013 PCA Event #9 PLO Turbo

Team Online’s Rowsome Has Back-To-Back Trophy-Winning Years

Canada’s Adrienne “talonchick” Rowsome joined Team PokerStars Online in July 2010 and has been doing a good job representing the company both on and off the felt. In 2012, Rowsome won the $1,000 Omaha & Stud Hi/Lo Mix Event at the PCA, good for a trophy and $10,900.

This year, Rowsome took down the $1,100 Triple Stud tournament for $10,920 in prize money and made it back-to-back trophy winning years at the PCA. Rowsome’s fiancé, Ryan “TheCart3r” Carter, was there to sweat the action. You may recall Carter as this year’s WCOOP Main Event runner-up, for which he earned $662,516.39.

2013 PCA Event #12 $1,100 Triple Stud

Tripp Represents Canada With $2K Turbo Win

Earlier this year PokerNews conducted aninterview with Steve “betrthanphil” Tripp for their popular Online Chat series.

In it, the 23-year-old online pro from Ontario, Canada, said of playing poker for a living: "This is what I plan on doing unless things start to go wrong. I don’t see that happening but you never know. That is why I finished university, so I had something to fall back on. The game has given me a lot at such a young age — more than I could have ever asked for. I just hope it continues to give and not take."

The game continued to give to Tripp as he took down the 2013 PCA Event #17 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo for $133,080 after defeating a final table that included Dan O’Brien and David “Chino” Rheem.

2013 PCA Event #17 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo

The Flying Dutchman Captures a H.O.R.S.E. Title

The 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event is etched in poker history as the year that sparked the poker boom. Not only did the eventual champ, Chris Moneymaker, become a poker icon, but many other poker pros also managed to make a name for themselves that year. One such man was the "Flying Dutcman" Marcel Luske, who sung his way into many a poker heart. Luske ended up finishing 14th that year for $65,000 while Moneymaker took home $2.5 million for his win.

Interestingly, both Team PokerStars Pros were at the final table of the 2013 PCA Event #16 $1,100 H.O.R.S.E. tournament. That time, Luske managed to outlast Moneymaker by sending the 2003 WSOP champ home in fourth place for $5,140. After Germany's Thomas Butzhammer fell in third place, Luske was left to play heads up against online prodigy and member of PokerStars Team Online Naoya Kihara. Luske's experience paid off when he defeated Kihara and captured the trophy. The win also took the Dutchman's lifetime live winnings up to $4,085,321.

2013 PCA Event #16 $1,100 H.O.R.S.E.

Former PokerNews Reporter Takes Down $300 Turbo

Alexis Gilbard, the partner of poker pro Jonathan Aguiar, previously worked a few events for PokerNews, and that's one of the reasons why we were so excited to see her win Event #22 $300 NLHE Turbo at the 2013 PCA for $16,230. What's more, she did so by defeating a final table that included two other women and Scott Baumstein, who final-tabled the Bounty Shootout at the 2011 PCA and has $1,202,608 in live tournaments.

2013 PCA Event #22 $300 NLHE Turbo

2010 WSOP Runner-Up John Racener Claims Victory in PLO Big 08

John Racener knows what it's like to take second place. The Floridian finished runner-up to Team PokerStars Pro Jonathan Duhamel in the 2010 WSOP Main Event for $5,545,955. This past week in Event #26 $1,100 PLO Big O8, which is five-card Omaha, Racener made sure not to come up short again. Instead, he defeated a final table that included Allen Kessler and Leif Force to win the $16,000 first-place prize. Granted, it wasn't accompanied by the life-changing money as 2010's big score, but a win is a win.

2013 PCA Event #26 $1,100 PLO Big O8

Lupascu Takes Down the Women's Event

The 2013 PCA Women’s Event attracted 66 players and created a prize pool of $66,000. Among the participants were PokerNews’ own Lynn Gilmartin, Maria Ho, Fatima Moreira de Melo, Charlotte “Sjlot” Van Brabander and the Grindettes’ Jennifer Shahade, who recently did an interview with PokerNews. Unfortunately, none of them managed to make the final table.

Speaking of the Grindettes, Jamie Kerstetter managed to make the final table, but her deep run came to an end in fourth place. Kerstetter was crippled when she lost A♦Q♦ to Valerie Jensen, who held A♥A♣. Kerstetter is the wife of $100,000 Super High Roller final tablist Greg Jensen (, who donated his winnings to charity). Not long after, Kerstetter moved all in for around 15,000 with 8♠5♥ and was called by the K♦10♠ of Corina Lupascu. The board ran out KxKx4xAx2x and Kerstetter, who also did an interview with PokerNews recently, exited in fourth place for $6,080.

Jensen ended up busting in third place for $8,320 and followed in her husband by donating all of it to charity. That left Lupascu to do heads-up battle against Marguerite Spagnuola, with the latter holding the chip lead. Lupascu managed to claw her way into the lead, and that’s when she delivered the fatal blow. It happened when Spagnuola pushed all-in for 65,000 with 7♥6♥ and Lupascu calledwith A♦9♣. The board ran out K♠2♣8♠9♥Q♣ and Lupascu claimed victory.

2013 PCA Event #26 $1,100 PLO Big O8

Stiers Follows Up Runner-Up Finish with a Win

Earlier in the week, Joseph Stiers made it to the final two in the Canada Cup and held a 4-1 chip lead over Danny Noseworthy. Unfortunately for Stiers, he was unable to close the deal and lost it in heads-up play. Fast forward one week and Stiers showed that the loss was just a fluke by conquering a field of 39, including Phil Hellmuth and Philipp Gruissem, in Event #25 $5,300 NLHE Heads-Up. In his final match, Stiers defeated fellow Canadian Hagop Ketendjian to win the title and $70,935.

2013 PCA Event #25 $5,300 NLHE Heads-Up

_{*Denotes heads-up deal.}

Here's a look at the 2013 PCA Heads-Up bracket from Event #25:

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PR & Media Manager for PokerNews, Podcast host & 2013 WSOP Bracelet Winner.

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