The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) rolled on Wednesday with final numbers coming in for the PokerStars No Limit Hold’em Players Championship (PSPC) in the Bahamas.
Tournament organizers announced that the winner would walk away with $4.1 million. Tuesday’s action ended with Krasimir Yankov (pictured in lead image courtesy PokerStars/Joe Giron) as chip leader and 255 players remaining.
Plenty of big names also remain in the field including Jeremy Ausmus, Jonathan Jaffe, Tommy Nguyen, Daniel Dvoress, Chris Moorman, Tony Tran, Sam Grafton, Sean Winter, and Arlie Shaban.
Here’s a quick look at some of the action from the Bahamas on Day 2 and 3.
PokerStars announces final PSPC numbers
This year’s PSPC winner will once again walk away with life-changing money. Tournament officials announced Tuesday that the event brought in 1,014 entries for a $24.8 million prize pool. That includes more than 400 Platinum Pass winners.
The top 175 places will be paid with the champion walking away with $4.1 million. That’s a drop of $1 million from the 2019 total, but an impressive figure nonetheless.
The runner-up scores $2.5 million with all players in the top six places bagging at least $1 million. A min-cash is worth $35,100.
Yankov, of Bulgaria, has $2.2 million in live tournament winnings. He recently finished 11th in the World Poker Tour World Championship for $338,500.
By mid-afternoon on Wednesday, Brazil’s Philipe Pizzari moved into the chip lead but several players, including Yankov, hovered around the 1-million chip mark. Ausmus stayed among the top 10 as well. Jaffe also continued riding a nice wave among the chip leaders.
PokerStars Platinum Pass winners shine among Day 3 chip leaders
Along with big-name pros still in the field, several Platinum Pass winners also continued a march toward reaching the money on Wednesday. Spain’s Omar Del Pino was one of those still alive and sat among the top five on Wednesday afternoon.
He won his pass via the Platinum Grind competition. He’s also one of only seven players to win a pass in 2019 and also for this year’s event. The first came after winning the PSF Marbella Main Event for €179,000 along with the prestigious prize. An even deeper run could certainly make for quite a story for this Spanish grinder.
Another Platinum Pass winner sat in the top 10. France’s Renato Minicuci won his spot in the field via a PokerStars Spin & Go freeroll promotion.
Minicuri has $66,357 in live tournament winnings and would make for quite a story as well if he can keep the mojo going. His biggest finish came in 2019, when he finished runner-up in a €330 event in a European Poker Tour Monte Carlo for $19,143.
The 43-year-old began playing poker in 2014 after some co-workers asked him to play in a tournament. He’s now got a chance to really make that freeroll win pay off with a 100% return on investment.
Bad beat sends German star packing
The final hand of the night at the secondary feature table saw Germany’s Christian Rudolph suffer a bad beat and hit the exit door. This hasn’t been the only bad beat of the series obviously, but stood out as a top pro hit the rail.
Rudolph has more than $5.4 million in live tournament winnings including wins on numerous tours. He also has numerous major wins in the online poker realm as well.
On the final hand of the night, @SquidPoker played a big pot. 👇
Sam is at today's opening feature table, alongside Nacho Barbero, Noah Schwartz, Pedro Garagnani and Anton Wigg.
Watch cards-up coverage at https://t.co/SB357usSaR or https://t.co/ZarB0RN21O pic.twitter.com/6Cn1z869V7
— PokerStars LIVE (@PokerStarsLIVE) February 1, 2023
That included winning the World Series of Poker Online Main Event in 2020 for $1.8 million.
Rudolph has already scored a third-place finish in the $1,100 PCA No Limit Hold’em event for $38,950. But on Tuesday his tournament life came to a close in the PSPC after his A♥K♥ was bested by Sam Grafton’s A♣J♥.
♠♠♠ Ready to get in the action at PokerStarts? Click here for a complete site review and exclusive PokerScout bonus offers. ♠♠♠