Karl Stark and David Peters Big Stacks as 43 Advance from Day 3 of 2018 PCA
Day 3 of the 2018 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) began with 101 runners from the 582-player field return to action. After four 90-minute levels of play, during which time the money bubble burst, the field was whittled down to the final 43.
Leading the pack with a stack of 1,148,000 is Sweden’s Karl Stark, though poker pro David Peters is hot on his heels with 1,117,000 million. Others still in contention for the $1,081,100 first place prize are Day 2 chip leader Oleg Titov (938,000), Koray Aldemir (757,000), 2017 GPI Player of the Year Adrian Mateos (620,000), Jack Sinclair (598,000), and Team PokerStars Pro Liv Boeree (389,000).
Also making it through is PokerStars Ambassador and Erik Seidel protégé Maria Konnikova, who is fresh off winning the 2018 PCA National for $84,600. She’ll face an uphill battle as she sits on the short stack with 67,000.
With 87 players getting paid, 14 had to leave empty-handed on Day 3. They included Igor Yaroshevskyy, Andy Philachack, Chris “Big Huni” Hunichen, Joao Simao, and bubble boy Nikita Neliubin, who fell after a marathon hand-for-hand period.
Once the bubble burst – the result of Neliubin’s ace-three failing to overcome Big Slick – the in-the-money finishes came quick and included Darren Rabinowitz (87th - $17,500), Keith Lehr (81st - $17,500), Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin (69th - $19,760), two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Kevin MacPhee (67th - $19,760), Vladimir Troyanovskiy (63rd - $19,760), and the last former PCA champ in the field Harrison Gimbel (56th - $19,760).
Another player to fall was Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein, who was actually the favorite to bust on the bubble. He got his extreme short stack all in preflop with pocket eights only to run into aces. Lucky for him, an eight on the river allowed him to survive and ladder up a bit.
Greenstein fell in the last level of the night when he got his stack all in with pocket kings against Peters’ ace-king. There was side action between Peters and Gleidibe Brito, who held two black sevens, and the flop came down jack-high. Peters wound up turning an ace, won some more chips off Brito, and sent Greenstein to the rail in 47th place for $22,020.
Day 4 of this six-day tournament will get underway at Noon local time on Friday with the plan of playing down to the final 16 players. Once again, the PokerNews live reporting team will be on hand to bring you all the action and eliminations straight from the tournament floor, so be sure to join us then.