One of poker’s biggest tournament series, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) got underway today at the Atlantis Resort and Casino in the Bahamas. The 40-event series slated to take place from now until January 14th is one of 2 main “kickoff” events to start off each New Year, the other being the Aussie Millions, which begins later on this month.
Just as the World Series of Poker tends to draw participants from all over the world of live poker, for the last decade the PCA has been the “mecca gathering” for online poker players – though of course players who primarily play in live events also take part. Winners of top PCA events truly start off the year with a bang, immediately shooting to the top of the year’s earnings and Player of the Year leaderboards. That kind of momentum often carries them throughout the remainder of the year, so there’s plenty to gain besides fame, money and prestige at these events.
This year’s PCA starts off with the 3-day $100,000 Super High Roller event, which (as of this writing) features 42 of the game’s biggest names, including Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Tom Dwan, Jonathan Duhamel, and John Juanda. Also signed up to play is Phil Hellmuth, who, believe it or not, is in attendance at the PCA for the very first time in his illustrious career. Clearly he’s aiming for yet another poker achievement to add to his collection.
The Super High Roller’s 42-entrant field has easily surpassed last year’s field of 32, when Viktor “Isildur” Blom took home top prize of over $1.25 million. Other events on the 10-day calendar include the $25,000 High Roller and the $10,000 Main Event.
Unique Poker Tournaments to the PCA, and Event Milestones
The PCA is also a trailblazer in terms of the types of poker tournaments it stages. For example, one such notable to be debuted there was the “battleship” event, pitting players against each other heads-up while sitting across from one another at their laptops. Though there won’t be any battleship this year, we will, for the first time ever, see an Open-Face Chinese Poker tournament contested in a poker discipline that has been gaining tons of popularity with the pros over the last few months.
In its 10 years, the PCA has experienced plenty of highs, including:
- being the original premier poker tournament for under 21s (you only need to be 18 to play)
- being the focal point for the start of the poplar PokerStars blog in 2005
- becoming part of the European Poker Tour in 2008
- putting the Bahamas’ Paradise Island on the poker map
Just to note, this year our buddy Shaun “the Dealer” Harris is working the tables at the PCA – he tweeted this picture – paradise indeed!
Where Can You Find More PCA Info?
Anyone out there interested on more closely following the goings-on in the Bahamas is welcome to visit the dedicated PokerStars pages. If any particular big news happens over there, you can be sure we’ll be reporting about it here at Cardplayer Lifestyle.
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