Cary Katz Comes From Behind to Win 2018 PCA $100K Super High Roller for $1,492,340
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The eighth edition of the 2018 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) $100,000 Super High Roller concluded on Monday night, and self-proclaimed recreational player Cary Katz prevailed over a 48-entry field to win the $1,492,340 first-place prize.
Prior to the win, Katz had $12,205,909 in live tournament earnings including a career-best $1,929,203 for finishing fifth in the 2016 Big One for One Drop. While he’s taken down plenty of ARIA Super High Rollers, a series he started, this win marked his first major victory outside Las Vegas.
Katz’s win was an epic come-from-behind affair. He didn’t even play Day 1 of the tournament, instead opting to late register right before the start of play on Day 2, and spent much of the final table as the short stack.
Meanwhile, all eyes were on Bryn Kenney on becoming a two-time champ. At one point, Kenney, who in 2016 topped a field of 58 entries to win the same event for $1,687,800, held a massive chip lead four-handed.
Surprisingly, he busted in third place for $686,960, which marked his fifth PCA $100K SHR cash in eight events. That now includes three third-place finishes. The $4,166,700 Kenney has won throughout the history of this tournament marks approximately 20% of his now $21,100,543 in lifetime earnings.
Kenney is coming off the best year of his career where he won $8,505,897 million playing tournaments, more than any other player in the world. That included winning $1.75 million in last year’s PokerStars Championship Bahamas. If there’s such a thing as home-field advantage in poker, Kenney has certainly seemed to find it here on Paradise Island.
| Place | Player | County | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Cary Katz | USA | $1,492,340 |
| 2nd | Justin Bonomo | USA | $1,077,800 |
| 3rd | Bryn Kenney | USA | $686,960 |
| 4th | Daniel Negreanu | Canada | $521,140 |
| 5th | Ivan Luca | Argentina | $402,700 |
| 6th | Ike Haxton | USA | $307,940 |
| 7th | Sam Greenwood | Canada | $248,720 |
Kenney got to work on just Hand #10 of the final table when he raised with two red aces. The short-stacked Sam Greenwood woke up with two black kings in the big blind, moved all in, and busted after Kenney called.
Not long after, Kenney claimed the chip lead, which he would swap back and forth with Argentina’s Ivan Luca. On Hand #45, Luca was in the small blind and moved all in with the ace-four and got Ike Haxton to call off for 1.41 million in the big with the queen-jack suited. The board ran brought neither player a pair and Luca’s ace-high was good enough to send Haxton to the rail.
There was a break after that hand, and Luca went into it with the chip lead. Two hands back from break, he was out in fifth place.
In the first hand, he lost nearly a million in chips to Kenney in a failed bluff. In the next hand, he got it in with ace-jack to the ace-king of Kenney in a four-bet pot and he wouldn't find a suck out on the flop, turn, or river.
From there, Daniel Negreanu was knocked down to just two big blinds after getting rivered by Bonomo. Amazingly, he spun that up to 33 bbs in three hands – the result of first tripling up and then hitting back-to-back doubles. Unfortunately, momentum soon escaped “Kid Poker.”
Negreanu was cut back down to size after losing a race with ace-queen to Justin Bonomo’s sixes, and he fell a short time later. It happened when he got it in with pocket kings against Bonomo’s ace-jack. An ace hit the flop and that was all she wrote for Negreanu.
Kenney held the chip lead for most of three-handed play, but eventually, the blinds got big. That is when his fortune flipped. It was also this point that Katz came on strong, going from the short stack to even things up.
Kenney eventually fell to the short stack and opted to call off from the big blind with the king-nine after Bonomo had shoved the small with the queen-ten. Bonomo paired his ten on the flop, and it held to send Kenney home in third place.
Katz and Bonomo began heads-up play fairly even in chips, and it didn’t take long for things to heat up. Long story short, Katz held the seven-four and Bonomo ace-nine on a board reading three sevens and an ace and five. A 5.11 million pot went to Katz with quads, and he pulled out to a more than 2-1 chip lead.
Three hands later, it was all over. Bonomo shoved with Big Slick and Katz called with pocket eights. The snowmen held in the race and Bonomo had to settle for second place. The silver lining was that he earned seven figures to help ease the pain.
“I feel good, it's a great way to start the year,” Bonomo said after his elimination. “I think I made one or two very small mistakes, so otherwise I'm really happy with how I played. It's gonna be a really big year with lots of high buy-ins.”
The 2018 PCA is far from over, and right now you can follow live updates from several other events including the $50K High Roller and $1,650 PCA National. We’ll also be back tomorrow with updates from Day 1B of the 2018 PCA Main Event.
PCA Super High Roller History
| Year | Entries | Prize Pool | Winner | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 38 entries | $3,743,000 | Eugene Katchalov | Ukraine | $1,500,000 |
| 2012 | 32 entries | $3,136,000 | Viktor Blom | Sweden | $1,254,400 |
| 2013 | 59 entries | $5,724,180 | Scott Seiver | USA | $2,003,480 |
| 2014 | 56 entries | $5,433,120 | Fabian Quoss | Germany | $1,629,940 |
| 2015 | 66 entries | $6,402,000 | Steve O'Dwyer | Ireland | $1,872,580 |
| 2016 | 58 entries | $5,626,000 | Bryn Kenney | USA | $1,687,800 |
| 2017 | 54 entries | $5,239,080 | Jason Koon | USA | $1,650,300 |
| 2018 | 48 entries | $14,737,600 | Cary Katz | USA | $1,492,340 |
