Like Wayne Bentley on Day 1A, Praz Bansi owns a commanding chip lead in the 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) after Day 2. His stack of 960,800 chips is 260,000 more than the next closest competitor.
It’s not as if Bansi had a cakewalk through Day 2 on Thursday, either. At one point during play, his tablemates included Team PokerStars Pro member and “High Stakes Poker” player Dario Minieri, former Bodog pro and live tournament aficionado Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo, PokerStars Sunday 500 winner Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar, and 2008 European Poker Tour (EPT) Monte Carlo Grand Final winner Glen Chorny. That was just his first taste of tough competition.
After surviving the first Table of Doom, Bansi was relegated to an equally talented group of opponents. This time, his company included 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event November Nine member and top all-around player Phil Ivey, former EPT Dortmund final table member Nicolas Levi, and Ivan Demidov, who made the feature table of the WSOP Las Vegas and WSOP Europe Main Events in 2008. Despite the tough go at it on Thursday, Bansi persevered. He’s fresh off a $594,000 cash for taking third in the 2009 WSOP Europe Main Event.
Bentley, who held a healthy edge over the rest of the merged Day 2 field, ended with 602,500 chips, good for third overall. One of the final eliminations of the day went to Team PokerStars Pro’s Vanessa Rousso, who picked up A-K and pushed over the top of an opponent’s raise. However, her adversary held pocket aces and Rousso could not catch up. Several hands earlier, Rousso tripled up with pocket fours against A-K and A-Q.
The brutal beat of the day in the 2010 PCA Main Event went to Barry Greenstein, who committed all of his chips with pocket aces, but ultimately fell to 4-6 of spades. The board gave his opponent a straight and that was all she wrote for the three-time bracelet winner, as Greenstein signed his copy of his book, “Ace on the River,” and headed for the exits. Absolute Poker pro Freddy Deeb suffered a similar fate, pushing his chips in with pocket aces and falling to pocket tens when the flop came 8-9-10. Deeb reached the final table of the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Festa al Lago in October, earning $278,000.
Here are the top ten chip stacks as play enters Day 3 in the 2010 PCA Main Event:
1. Praz Bansi – 960,800
2. Marc Etienne Mclaughlin – 702,400
3. Wayne Bentley – 602,500
4. Nasr El Nasr – 528,300
5. Daniel Ades – 501,400
6. Eric “EFro” Froehlich – 467,500
7. Matthew Haugen – 456,400
8. Kenny “Hixx” Hicks – 455,500
9. Matt “mattg1983” Graham – 428,900
10. Danny Suied – 420,000
Other notable players remaining in the field of 275, along with their end of Day 2 chip counts, include:
Dario Minieri – 389,200
Amnon Filippi – 386,300
Amit “amak316” Makhija – 292,600
Vadim Trincher – 290,900
Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo – 262,500
Ivan Demidov – 259,300
Phil Ivey – 227,400
Paul Wasicka – 224,800
Carlos Mortensen – 185,500
Craig Marquis – 176,600
Kathy Liebert – 171,800
Barry Shulman – 150,200
Liz Lieu – 136,800
Victor Ramdin – 110,100
Huck Seed – 107,100
Orel Hershiser – 79,000
Nick Binger – 57,900
Steven Paul-Ambrose – 49,300
Despite boasting a larger field than in 2009, the 2010 PCA will only dole out $2.2 million to its winner; last year, Poorya Nazari banked $10,000 for winning the Bahamas EPT tournament. A flatter payout structure will see the top four finishers earn at least $1 million, with the top eight making more than $200,000. In total, 224 players out of the record-setting 1,529 who started will take home cash.
The money bubble will burst today from the Atlantis Resort and Casino in the Bahamas, with players claiming their share of the $14.8 million prize pool. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest from the 2010 PCA Main Event.
