As the Super High Roller wrapped up, the PCA Main Event got underway. Day 1a of the $10k buy-in event attracted 418 entrants, roughly half of which survived to move on to Day 2. Day 1b is currently underway, and its 654 entrants have pushed the total field well past the 1,000 mark. Those eliminated on Day 1a included Matt Stout, Shaun Deeb, Chris Moorman and Theo Jorgensen, while Day 1b’s early casualty list includes Blom, Duhamel, Eugene Katchalov and Jean-Robert Bellande.
Across the pond in Dublin, David Shallow has won the World Poker Tour Ireland, earning €222k and a seat at the upcoming WPT Championship in Vegas. The €2,500 buy-in event attracted a field of 338, eventually coming down to a five-handed final table on Sunday. Charles Chattha was your runner-up, earning €113k, while the rest of the final table finished as follows: Ronan Gilligan (€75k), Patrik Vestlin (€53k) and Steve Watts (€40k). Next up for the WPT is a return trip to Venice beginning Feb. 6.
But enough about 2012, who ruled the 2011 roost? CardPlayer has named Ben Lamb as their Player of the Year based on his impressive 2011, which included five live cashes at the World Series of Poker (among them, his first WSOP bracelet and third-place in the Main Event) for a total payday of $5.35m. Meanwhile, Bluff Magazine named Eugene Katchalov their Player of the Year for his 13 cashes (including his first WSOP bracelet and the PCA Super High Roller title) totaling $2.57m. The two prizes are awarded based on different point systems, meaning we’re comparing apples to oranges again, so we suggest Lamb and Katchalov get it on mano a mano like Bertrand ‘Elky’ Grospelier and Lex Veldhuis did in that kick-boxing match in Spain. Seriously, if we’ve learned nothing from the Highlander movies, it’s that there can be only one…