PCA 2015 – Day 1B Attracts Close to 600 Players

As expected after the small turnout for the first of two initial flights of the PCA 2015 Main Event, the second flight was crowded. Close to 600 players put up a $10,000 participation fee and another day of great poker took place in the Bahamas.

The tournament room was bursting with life as hundreds of players of all shapes and sizes came down to seek thrills, fame and fortune on the green felt. Professional players, sports stars, celebrities and simple qualifiers were all there with an equal starting chance and a fair shot at the title.

As is typical in such a huge field, eliminations were numerous and they came quickly and in bulks. The man profiting the most from the chips left behind was the German aptly named Dietrich Fast. He finished the day with a stack of 208,200 chips, giving him the overall chip lead to start play today. The two players who finished right behind him in chip counts were Kostas Pantaridis with 184k and German Sakavichyus at 153k.

It is mandatory in these reports to mention the ‘notables’ who survived, so here are some of them: Stephen Chidwick, with just over 100k chips, Daniel ‘KidPoker’ Negreanu, Andre Akkari, George Lind, Liv Boeree, Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, Jason Mercier (with quite a short stack) and many others.

For every one survivor, there are many casualties, and those who will not be returning today include Carlos Mortensen, Bill Perkins, Ivan Demidov, Steve O’Dwyer (who claimed the $100k Super High Roller title just two days ago), Jason Koon and Jason Alexander.

PokerTube’s own Laura Cornelius caught up with Jason Alexander for a short interview during his time in the Bahamas.

Laura Garzon (photo), who qualified for the event starting from just a 2 FPP rebuy tournament on PokerStars, also made it through yesterday and she will be returning with a stack of 33,000 – nothing superb, but still quite workable and could turn into a good finish if cards go her way a bit.

Registration for the tournament remains open until the start of play today, so we will not have the final number of participants until then, but it is already clear it will be a big one.

Make sure to keep pace with the action and check out some great interviews our crew in the Bahamas has prepared for you. There are many more to come, so stay tuned.