Jean Ateba Leads Day 1B Field; Negreanu, Moneymaker and Sontheimer All Fall
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Day 1B of the 2018 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) $10,300 Main Event drew 393 players, which along with 1A’s 178 brought the total field up to 571. That number may go up as registration is open until the start of play on Day 2.
After eight one-hour levels of play, Norway’s Jean Ateba, a PokerStars Qualifier, and his stack of 155,000 lead the surviving players. Hot on his heels is last year’s third-place finisher Mike Vela, who bagged 153,000, while Timur Toktabayev advanced with 141,500. All of those stacks are ahead of Day 1A chip leader Affif Prado, who bagged 137,500.
Some other Day 1B survivors included Daniel McAleer (131,700), Thai Ha (130,000), Victor Ramdin (119,700), Jonathan Jaffe (100,400), David Peters (71,600), 2017 GPI Player of the Year Adrian Mateos (69,900), Chris “Big Huni” Hunichen (65,700), former NFL player Richard Seymour (47,200), and Maurice Hawkins (26,000).
Of course, not everyone was fortunate enough to make it through. Among those to fall were Chino Rheem, Ike Haxton, Stefan Schillhabel, Ari Engel, Jason Wheeler, Justin Bonomo, Ben Tollerene, Noah Schwartz, Rainer Kempe, Mohsin Charania, and Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu.
“Kid Poker” made an uncharacteristically early exit in Level 4 when he got his last 8,700 all in preflop against Simon Deadman. Negreanu held pocket sevens and was looking to crack Deadman’s aces. Unfortunately for him there would be no “seven from heaven.”
Other Team PokerStars Pros to take their leave were Jeff Gross and Chris Moneymaker. On the flip side, Team PokerStars Pros Jake Cody (106,000) and Andre Akkari (63,400) both found a bag.
Another player to fall was Steffen “Goose” Sontheimer, who last year won the inaugural Poker Masters in Las Vegas. He got into a raising war with Spain’s Miguel Riera Suarez that saw the chips go in. Sontheimer had his stack of 35,000 in the pot with queens, but failed to get lucky against the aces of Suarez.
The surviving players from the two starting flights will return at Noon local time on Wednesday to play five more levels, which will shift to 90-minutes long. Remember, players can register right up until the start of play. We’ll see you tomorrow for more action straight from the tournament floor of the 2018 PCA.