Earlier this week, Poorya Naziri from Toronto, Canada, turned $700 into $3 million when he won the sixth PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. The 22-year-old biochemistry graduate won his seat on PokerStars in a $33 triple turbo rebuy tournament, investing only $700 to win his trip to the Caribbean and a seat in the PCA ‘Festival of Poker’. He was one of 1,347 entrants in the $10,000 no limit Hold'em event - a number that smashed all records for a poker tournament held outside the United States and created a total prize pool of more than $12.5 million.Poorya, who graduated last month, admitted he was stunned by the win – one of the biggest sporting prizes in the world. He said: “It was only on the day of the final that I started thinking about winning. At one point on the day before I was down to virtually nothing but I got off to a good start at the final table and at that point I thought I might have a shot.” Poorya, who has never been to Europe, has also a won a seat in the EPT Grand Final which takes place in Monte Carlo, April 28 - May 3.
The record field at this year’s PCA included 1,059 PokerStars players, of whom 746, including Poorya, had won their seats online with PokerStars. Team PokerStars Pro Alexandre Gomes made the final table but was knocked
out in fourth place, earning $750,000. Among the stars in the tournament were German tennis legend and PokerStars ambassador Boris Becker as well as 26 Team PokerStars Pros. The roll call of top players included last year’s PCA champion Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier, former world champions Joe Hachem, Greg Raymer and Chris Moneymaker, multiple bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu and sponsored PokerStars player Peter Eastgate, who became the youngest ever WSOP world champion when he won $9 million in November. Other stars who took part included Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, Chris Ferguson, Antonio Esfandiari and Eli Elezra.The Team PokerStars Pros Vicky Coren, Barry Greenstein, Marcin Horecki and Tom McEvoy also cashed in the main event, alongside sponsored players Kathy Liebert - 12th for $120,000 - and PokerStars Six players Ylon Schwartz and Eastgate. Also sponsored into the event were PokerStars Six players Ivan Demidov, Darus Suharto and Dennis Philips as well as the Norwegian star Johnny Lodden, the American baseball legend Orel Hershiser and the Brazilian Indy stock car racer Gualter Salles.
Team PokerStars Pros had a great week during the PCA ‘Festival of Poker’ with Grospellier, last year’s PCA champion, taking home $433,000 for winning the $25,000 PCA High Roller event and Hevad Khan winning the
$2,000 side event for $200,000. Eastgate followed up his cash in the main event by winning the $5,000 event for $343,000. Other events this week included the Battleship tournament, won by Bahbak 'bigredAK' Oboodifor for a $44,800 first prize, and the finals of the World Cup of Poker, won by Germany.John Duthie, the Executive Producer of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour, said: “The PCA is the first major poker event on the hectic 2009 poker calendar and the recent worldwide financial crisis did nothing to deter more than 1,300 people entering the $10,000 buy-in main event that smashed all records for a poker tournament outside of the States.”
The next stop on the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour is the €5,300 buy-in EPT Deauville event running from 20-24 January at Deauville Casino.
1st Poorya Nazari (Canada) -- $3,000,000
2nd Tony Gregg (USA) -- $1,700,000
3rd Benny Spindler (Germany) -- $1,100,000
4th Alexandre Gomes (Brazil) -- $750,000
5th Peter Tielen (Holland) -- $550,000
6th Dustin Dirksen (USA) -- $400,000
7th Daniel Heimiller (USA) -- $300,000
8th Kevin Saul (USA) -- $234,000
image courtesy of Poker Player Magazine