Isaac Haxton Leads PCA 2012 Super High Roller
January 6, 2012 3:29 pmThe 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) kicked off yesterday with the $100,000 Super High Roller Event. The 32 pros ponying up the huge buy-in then managed to generate a prize pool worth $3,136,000 with a $1,254,400 first-place prize earmarked for the eventual winner.
By the end of the day, however, just 18 players remained with Isaac Haxton (pictured right) leading the way on 1.24 million chips. Haxton managed to get off to the best possible start after being dealt pocket queens and scooping Jonathan Duhamel’s 205,000 stack, whose pre-flop AK six-bet shove failed to improve on a J-8-2-5-10 board. Justin Smith’s tournament foundered in a similar way after Haxton’s pocket jacks once again held against the A-K of his opponent.
Justin Smith, however, chose not to re-buy unlike Duhamel, who then went on to finish the day in 4th place with 729,000 chips. Duhamel recently was attacked in his home by a group of robbers, who also allegedly included his ex-girlfriend. Interestingly enough, the robbery wasn’t a taboo subject with the jovial Daniel Negreanu yelling out to Duhamel during the tournament:
“What’s up, Champ It looks like you pick women like I do.”
Another player hitting the rail on Day 1 was last year’s champion Eugene Katchalov (A-J), who decided to call Yevgeniy Timoshenko’s pre-flop four-bet shove with pocket kings. The 10-9-3-4-5 board sealed Katchalov’s fate, thus ensuring a new champion this year.
Also joining Justin Smith and Katchalov on the rail were Matt Glantz, Bryn Kenney, Shawn Buchanan, Philipp Gruissem, David Benefield, Terje Augdal, Alexey Repik, Bill Perkins, Sandor Demjan and Masa Kagawa.
The remaining 18 competitors will return to the Atlantis Resort and Casino, Paradise Island on Friday with the blinds starting out on 3k/6k. The field will line-up as follows:
Isaac Haxton: 1,240,000
Viktor Blom: 875,000
Erik Seidel: 753,000
Jonathan Duhamel: 729,000
Humberto Brenes: 609,000
Mike McDonald: 577,000
Jason Mercier: 514,000
Chance Kornuth: 444,000
Galen Hall: 380,000
Scott Seiver: 365,000
Daniel Negreanu: 346,000
Sam Stein: 344,000
Dan Shak: 182,000
Y.Timoshenko: 174,000
Will Molson: 164,000
Tom Marchese: 158,000
B.Grospellier: 112,000
David Sands: 47,000
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