Day 1b of the 2011 PCA Comes to an End
Day 1b of the 2011 PokerStars.net Caribbean Adventure was expected to have a huge turnout and that is exactly what happened. While Day 1a drew 647 players, Day 1b saw 913 players enter, bringing the total number of entrants to 1,560. That is a 31-player increase over last year's PCA and created a prize pool of $15,132,000, which will be paid to the top 232 players with the winner taking home $2.3 million.
The day started with a laundry list of big-name players. Team PokerStars Pros in attendance included Jonathan Duhamel, Daniel Negreanu (Canada), Maria Mayrinck (Brazil), Lex Veldhuis (Netherlands), Vanessa Rousso (USA), Greg Raymer (USA), Jason Mercier (USA), and Barry Greenstein (USA), just to name a few. Unfortunately, none of those players managed to make it through the day. While some failed to survive, other survived. Teams PokerStars Pros who navigated Day 1b and will return for Day 2 include Liv Boeree (UK), Sandra Naujoks (Germany), Viktor "Isildur1" Blom (Sweden), and Chris Moneymaker (USA), who finished toward the top of the chip counts with 217,600.
Team PokerStars Pros were not the only big names in the field. Among the fallen were Phil "Unabomber" Laak, Eric Baldwin, Sorel Mizzi, Tom Marchese, Matt Affleck, John Racener, Antonio Esfandiari, Matthias Habernig, David Oppenheim, and Jonathan Little. While many top pros were eliminated, there are no shortage of big names making it to Day 2. Daniel Alaei, Praz Bansi, Alex Kostritsyn, Brazilian tennis superstar Gustavo Kuerten, and Dwyte Pilgrim, who shot up from 9,000 to 194,200 in the last two levels of the night, are all still in contention.
Joining Pilgrim and Moneymaker at the top of the chips counts are Walid Bou-Habib, the Day 1b chip leader with 239,000, Timothy Finne (225,100), Carol Ventura (225,000), Ilan Rouah (224,900), Tommy Vedes (220,200), and Adam Gabor (207,900).
All told, 373 players survived Day 1b and will join the 272 remaining players from Day 1a tomorrow for the start of Day 2, which is scheduled to begin at 12 p.m. EST. Be sure to follow along right here as the PokerNews Live Reporting Team brings you all the action, eliminations, and drama from the 2011 PCA at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas.