14 Jan 12

PCA Main Event: Come from Behind Win for John Dibella

Amateur John Dibella started in fifth place in the final table but outlasted the four pros ahead of him to take home the sweet $1.775 million prize. Kyle Julius finished second, Faraz Jaka was third while Xuan Liu came in fourth.

John Dibella and friend enjoying his moment in the limelight source: PokerStarsBlog

Three professional poker players went into the final table of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event with the three biggest stacks but it was a day trader from New York who emerged as the champion of the PCA Main Event 2012.

The humble Dibella had no illusions that this win was probably a once in a lifetime thing for him, "I made more doing this, but I'm not going to call myself a professional." "Baby, I did it, I love you and the kids!" he added to the TV cameras.

How it went down

• Ruben Visser first out - Visser started fourth but was the first to go. He lost half of his stack in some early battles, and in his last hand he lost the race with A-Q against Kyle Julius' 6-6

• Three shorties eliminated   - After Visser went out, the three players who started at the bottom, with less than half the chip average all went out. David Bernstein turned his freerolled seat into $260,000, there was no repeat of Anthony Gregg's 2009 feat, turning a shortstack into 2nd place, and he was out in 6th for $364,000.

Mark Drover was the last of the shorties to go out as he lost the race for his tournament life against Faraz Jaka, K-J vs 6-6. Drover picked up his $468,000 prize and it was down to four.

• Jaka out flops Xuan Liu - When the money all went in preflop, Xuan Liu who was the short stack then, was looking good for a double up with her A-7  against Jaka's A-6. Jaka found a 6 and flopped two pair, and Liu would have to be happy with the $600,000 fourth place prize and the record as the best ever female finisher in the PCA Main Event.

• Julius takes Jaka out - Instead of his usually relaxed outfit, Jaka showed up in a suit for the final table. We're not sure if that affected his mojo, but shortly after busting Xuan Liu, Jaka who looked set to run over his final two opponents ran into Kyle Julius' A-K minutes after Liu left. Jaka who only had K-J there found himself crippled and his hopes of a win evaporated.

He found one last double up through Dibella but it was Julius again who landed the final blow as Jaka's K-T was no match for Julius' A-J

• Dibella makes it look easy - With Jaka gone and the heads-up deal made, Dibella quickly got to work on extending his chip lead. He took down the first hand after flopping top pair with no kicker and betting Julius' A-J over cards out of the hand on the flop. He never looked back after that.

In the final hand, Julius raised and Dibella defended his big blind with and called the continuation bet on the flop of . Both checked the turn and Dibella made his flush on the river . Dibella lead out but Julius came over the top with a bluff all in, Dibella made the easy call and it was all over.

PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event Final Table Results
Place	Name	Prize (Heads-up Deal)
1st	John Dibella	$1,775,000
2nd	Kyle Julius	$1,500,000
3rd	Faraz 'The Toilet' Jaka	$755,000
4th	Xuan Liu	$600,000
5th	Mark Drover	$468,000
6th	Anthony Gregg	$364,000
7th	David Bernstein	$260,000
8th	Ruben Visser	$156,400
Players: 1 (1,072) | Prize Pool: $10,398,400

Side event updates

• Jason Koon leads $25k Highroller - 148 players signed up to the $25k High Roller event and they are now down to the final table of 8 after two days of play. Jason Koon leads but Jonathan Duhamel is not letting Koon out of his sights and follows closely in second place. The winner of this event is set to walk away with $1,134,930.

Isaac Haxton is fifth while Randy ' nanonokoPS' Lew is also still in but is languishing in 8th place and is the clear shorti stack with just 15 big blinds to his name.

PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25k High Roller Final Table Chip Counts
Place	Name	Chip Count
1st	Jason Koon	1,646,000
2nd	Jonathan Duhamel	1,530,000
3rd	Nicolas Fierro	1,181,000
4th	Leonid Bilokur	1,139,000
5th	Isaac Haxton	762,000
6th	Govert Metaal	545,000
7th	Michael Telker	397,000
8th	Randy ' nanonokoPS' Lew	197,000
Blinds 6,000/12,000/1,200Players: 8 (148) | Prize Pool: $3,626,000

• PokerStrategist 0piggybank in $5k Heads-up event -  This heads-up event is now at round 3 and among the ones who are still in are Black Member Martin ' 0piggybank' Finger who recently won the EPT Prague, WCOOP Main Event Champion Thomas 'Kallllle' Pedersen and baseball star Wade Townsend who is a Supernova Elite on PokerStars and is the player who has played the most online heads-up Sit and Gos, (101,062 as of January 11)