08 Jan 12

PCA: Viktor Blom Wins $100k Event for $1.2 Million; Main Event Day 1a Complete

PokerStars Pro Viktor "Isildur1" Blom makes his first live tournament victory a big one after defeating Dan Shak heads-up for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Super High Roller bracelet, earning $1,254,000.

PokerStars Pro Viktor Blom now $1.2m richer Source: PokerStarsBlog

Viktor "Isildur1" Blom has won the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 buy-in Super High Roller event, netting himself $1,254,000. Blom, who set the online poker world on fire in late 2009, beat a field 30 elite players in the event to win all eight million chips and a seven-figure first prize.

They see me rolling...

Blom was just one of 30 players who paid up the $100,000 to compete the toughest event of the PCA - and arguably the toughest event in the tournament calendar - with Jonathan Duhamel and Bill Perkins' re-entries bringing the total prize pool to $3,135,600.

He survived Day 1 and outlasted half the field to arrive for Day 2 third in chips. Over the course of Day 2 some of poker's biggest names were eliminated and a final table of eight was set, though only five would be getting paid.

The final table

The final table featured repeat appearances from two PokerStars Pros: Humberto Brenes and last year's runner-up Daniel Negreanu. The other red spade at the table was 2010 WSOP Main Event champion Jonathan Duhamel, whose recent trauma certainly hasn't hurt his poker prowess.

The 2011 PCA Main Event champion Galen Hall lead the way into the final table with just over one-fifth of the chips. He was followed by Duhamel, whose decision to re-enter turned out to be a profitable one, followed by Negreanu whose chipstack was a shade ahead of Blom's. Scott Seiver, Mike "Timex" McDonald and Brenes rounded out the final eight with their shorter stacks.

Into the money

2011 PCA Main Event champion Galen Hall came close to back-to-back seven-figure scores in the Bahamas,

PokerStars Pro Humberto Brenes and his "chark" were the first to leave. He was followed by "Timex" when the young Canadian's K-J couldn't come from behind against Isildur1's dominating A-J. Scott Seiver was the unfortunate bubble boy, leaving our remaining five players in the money.

Daniel Negreanu was next to leave when his A-K couldn't win the flip against Blom's 8-8, though he seemed happy enough with the result, tweeting that "I've played 4 Super High Roller events and have cashed in 3/4. They should have these once a month!"

Blom managed to massively extend his chip lead when he eliminated the next Canadian PokerStars Pro: Jonathan Duhamel 5-bet shoved a J-7-5 flop holding J-6 and Blom looked him up with a suited A-Q for the nut flush draw. The aggressive online pro made his flush on the turn to send the former WSOP champion packing.

He and Galen Hall traded the chip lead back and forth while Dan Shak treaded water during three-handed play, which lasted for hours before Hall's whittled-down stack went into the middle with pocket nines. Blom had picked up pocket rockets, which held to bring us heads-up.

An hour-long heads-up match was only ever going to go one way. Heads-up specialist Blom ground down Shak's stack over the course of the match in a dominating display, causing Dan Shak to jokingly ask "you ever play heads-up before?"

The final hand saw Shak move all-in over Blom's bet on a 9-7-6-Q board. Blom asked for a count and called with K-Q, which managed to hold up against Shak's A-5 nut flush/gutshot combo draw. With that, Blom was crowned the PCA 2012 Super High Roller champion and can take his name off the "online legends who have never won a live tournament" list.

PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Super High Roller Final Results
Place	Name	Prize
1st	Viktor Blom	$1,254,000
2nd	Dan Shak	$846,700
3rd	Galen Hall	$470,400
4th	Jonathan Duhamel	$313,600
5th	Daniel Negreanu	$250,900
Players:  1 (32)   |   Prize pool: $3,135,600

PCA Main Event, Russian Amateur Leads After Day 1A

Alexey Repik Just strange or strangely effective? Source:PokerStarsBlog

Though somewhat overshadowed by everyone's favourite hyper-aggressive Swede winning over a million dollars, the Main Event of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure began in the next room. A total of 418 players put up the $10,000 entry fee, which means 1,142 players are needed in order to equal the 1,560-strong field Galen Hall beat last year.

At the end of Day 1A, Russian amateur Alexey Repik leads the field after finishing with over 7 starting stacks (30,000 each) at 220,100. Repik who made the final table of the EPT Madrid High Roller last year had a strange but apparently effective style.

He came in with "big" raises of 3 times the big blind and more often than not, bet the pot or more after the flop. Maybe it was a surprise factor, but we will have to see how far his unorthodox play takes him.

Notables who finished with over 100k chips include Faraz Jaka (129,500), Adam Levy (112,100), Victor Ramdin (111,000) Jude Ainsworth(103,300) and Frank Kassela (100,000).

PokerStrategists, Konstantin ' BongBob' Bucherl and Dominik Ace0nTheRiver' Nitsche are also in the hunt along with Randy nanonokoPS' Lew. They each have 76,600, 16,500 and 16,200 chips respectively.

Many more top pros are scheduled to compete on Day1B and we will bringing you all our daily updates as usual.

PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event Day 1A Chip Counts
Place	Name	Chips
1st	Alexey Repik	220,100
2nd	Richard Bruning	193,100
3rd	Salvatore Bianco	192,400
4th	Marc Tschirch	176,000
5th	Marcel Bjerkmann	166,000
6th	Marco Palombi	148,600
7th	Connor Drinan	142,700
8th	David Granados	139,300
9th	Babak Malekain	134,800
10th	Lawrence Greenberg	132,600
Players:  213 (418)   |   Blinds 400/800