The PCA Main Event hits its $10m guarantee as 710 players managed to survive terrible American weather conditions to make it to the Bahamas for the second starting flight in the $10,000 Main Event.
The organizers of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) can afford to take that lounger down a notch, and kick off those blue suede shoes, after a chunky showing on Day 1B means the $10,000,000 guarantee has been met in the $10,000 Main Event.
David Carrion, PCA & Latam Director of Live Operations, told PokerStars: “Because of the weather, we were a little bit concerned about the numbers – not so much because of the guarantee, but because we want to give players a fantastic event. So we are thrilled we have topped 1,000 players and I know there are still players arriving after three days of trying to get here.”
710 players attended Day 1B and when you add that to the Day 1A total of 295 players, that means the current player count stands at 1,005 players – with late registration still open up until the start of Day 2.
448 players managed to beg, steal and borrow their way through the second starting flight field, and the World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Shankar Pillai finished at the top with 173,900 chips, giving him the chip lead proper when Day 2 starts.
Pillai has amassed over $700,000 in live tournament earnings, in a career that stretches back to 2007, and most of his scores have come in the WSOP with the highlight being the bracelet he won in 2007 when he saved the shoe cupboard of Beth Shak some added stress after beating her in heads-up action to capture the $527,829 first prize in a $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) event that saw Phil Hellmuth make a 6th place showing.
With 184 players surviving Day 1A we now have at least 632 players in the seat draw for Day 2, so let’s take a look who will be in that draw and who will be thinking about their trip to Australia.
Players who got through included Vanessa Selbst, Jonathan Duhamel, Joe Cada, Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier, Greg Merson, Fabian Quoss, Dan Smith and Noah Boeken; and those that were left eating sand included the former champion Harrison Gimbel, 2012 runner-up Kyle Julius, ElkY, Barry Greenstein, Paul Volpe, Michael Mizrachi, Andy Frankenberger, Dan Kelly, Jason Koon, Martin Finger and Bryn Kenney.
Kenney will no doubt brush off his disappointment (not that I have ever seen him disappointed) and shun the beach for the online grind just as he did when he was eliminated from the $100,000 Super High Roller (SHR).
According to PokerNews reporter Bruno Santos. Kenney dusted off his SHR disappointment to take $188,800 away from the PokerStars 2-7 Triple Draw tables; most of which came from the pockets of Eugene “oogee” Yanayt.
