Home / Poker News January 2009 / Newest EPT champion crowned at PCA
Newest EPT champion crowned at PCA
Posted by: James Carter. - Tue, 2009-01-13 18:13
Hosted by the Atlantis Resort, the
PokerStars Caribbean Adventure’s Main Event drew a crowd of 1,347 players from all walks of life. More than half the field was made up of online qualifiers, and eventually it was one of these online players who grabbed the victory and the $3 million that came with it.
Canada’s Poorya Nazari paid out $700 for a rebuy qualifier to the event, money which would probably seem quite a lot for most online players. Having turned that into $3 million though, Nazari probably looks at it as the best investment of his life.
Besides all those who won their seats online, the usual crowd of WSOP, WPT and EPT champions was also present, making it that much more difficult and rewarding for the online players to advance through the ranks.
The final table reflected the diversity of the field well. Alexandre Gomes, 2008 WSOP bracelet winner made the final table at the expense of Kevin Saul, who lost a huge hand close to the final table bubble, his stack giving Gomes the chip lead going into the final stretch. Poorya Nazari, Alexandre Gomes, Kevin Saul, Daniel Heimiller, Peter Tielen, Dustin Dirksen and Benny Spindler have all made it to the final table, however Saul was seriously short-stacked as a result of the whooping he had taken from Gomes earlier.
Kevin Saul eventually ended up in 8th, but the person responsible for his demise wouldn’t make it much further either. Alexandre Gomes was eliminated in 4th place, although it is also part of the story that he was sent to the rail at the end of the mother of all bad beats. The full house he had made proved to be no match for Benny Spindler’s quads.
The hostilities had been going down at a pretty sustained pace up to that moment, but Gomes’ elimination seemed to have brought everyone back down to the ground. The game slowed to a near halt and it took more than 4 hours for the remaining 3 players to show Benny Spindler to the rail in third. His elimination was obviously the cork in the bottleneck as it only took Nazari 4 hands to eliminate Tony Gregg in the heads-up stage.
The final hand saw Nazari’s A,10 go up against Gregg’s Q,7 as the board gave the former a pair of 10s on the flop.
