The PokerStars PCA is in full swing, with the $100k Super-High-Roller in the books, the PCA Main Event entering into Day 2, and a number of interesting moments and victories in the preliminary tournaments, which I will detail below.

Open-Faced Chinese Tournament

The first Open-Faced Chinese was held at the PCA, and despite a star-studded field, the final table featured only a few well-known players in David Bach, David Baker, and eventual winner Peter Jetten. The final attendance for the tournament was 59 entrants, not a bad turnout considering the format is one of the newest in poker.

1. Peter Jetten — $52,280

2. Nikita Nikolaev — $32,860

3. Maslak Konstantin — $19,420

4. Maxim Panyak — $14,200

5. Florens Feenstra — $10,460

6. Melissa Burr — $7,460

7. David “Bakes” Baker — $6,720

8. David Bach — $5,980

2012 Champ in the winner’s circle

2012 PCA Champion John Dibella seems to like the warm climate of the Bahamas in January, considering last year’s Main Event champ won a side event at this year’s PCA (although he did bust out of the Main Event on Day 1a).

1. John Dibella — $69,780

2. Charles Yamaguchi — $40,700

3. Matthew O’Brien — $23,260

4. Joe Elpayaa — $17,980

5. Fabio Freitas — $14,280

6. Simon Higgins — $10,580

7. Adam Bennett — $8,460

8. Angelo Recchia — $6,340

Phelps makes Day 2 of the Main Event

One of the most well-known athlete/celebrities in the world has made Day 2 of the 2013 PokerStars PCA Main Event, 18-time Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Phelps, who counts people like Phil Hellmuth, Antonio Esfandiari, and 2012 WSOP Champ Greg Merson among his friends. We’ll see today if Phelps has taken his poker game to the next level now that his competitive swimming has come to a close, as I’m sure his progress will be followed closely today.

Main Event attendance down

For most of its 10-year history the PokerStars PCA has been growing at a tremendous rate (becoming one of the most popular and prestigious tournaments in the poker world) but since Black Friday the tournament has taken a major hit in terms of attendance in the Main Event. This year the decline was not as dramatic as the attendance drop from 2011 to 2012, but this year’s dip was still roughly 10% from last year.

* 2011 PCA attendance = 1,560 entrants

* 2012 PCA attendance = 1,072 entrants

* 2013 PCA attendance = 987 entrants

Lodden Thinks… Second place is still pretty profitable

In the $5,200 Turbo tournament Team PokerStars Pro and the Genesis of the popular prop bet “Lodden Thinks”, Johnny Lodden finished in 2nd place, good enough for a $60,000 payday.

1. Mike Telker — $96,750

2. Johnny Lodden — $60,820

3. Moises Mussali Birch — $35,940

4. Igor Kurganov — $26,260

5. Alexander Venovski — $19,360

6. John Sitton — $13,820

7. David Peters — $12,440

8. Roger Tondeur — $11,060

 You can find more information on the PCA at the pokerstarsblog.com

Tags: Adam Bennett, Antonio Esfandiari, Champion John, Climate Of The Bahamas, Competitive Swimming, David Bach, David Baker, Feenstra, Full Swing, John Dibella, Maslak, Merson, Michael Phelps, Olympic Gold Medalist, phil hellmuth, Poker Game, PokerStars, Recchia, Simon Higgins, Warm Climate

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 9th, 2013 at 9:14 am and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.