At a final table dominated by big name poker pros, it was a New York stock trader John Dibella
who walked away with this year’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event title, not to mention a $2 million dollar payday. Dibella defeated a tough line up of pros to turn a seat he won in a $1,000 satellite into one of the biggest scores of the year.
The first amateur to win the title since John Gale in 2005, Dibella came into today’s action fifth in chips behind four full time poker pros. Former WPT Player of the Year Faraz Jaka was the chip leader when play began, with Kyle Julius and Xuan Liu right behind him. Dutch pro Ruben Visser was fourth in chips and Dibella began fifth and seemed like an afterthought in poker fans’ minds.
Visser was the first player to head home from the final table, busting at the hands of Julius early in the action. Julius was on top of the counts for the vast majority of final table action, but faced plenty of other tough big stacks as Dibella busted David Bernstein in seventh plcae and Liu took out 2009 PCA runner up Tony Gregg in sixth place. Mark Drover exited in fifth place at the hands of Jaka, who struggled to pick up chips at the final table, but amassed a big stack at Dover’s expense. Jaka and Dibella exchanged double ups, but when Jaka busted Liu in fourth place when his A6 outflopped Liu’s A7, it seemed like it would be Illinois poker pro Jaka vs Illinois poker pro Julius heads-up for the title.
The two aggressive pros clashed with one another during three-handed play though, as Jaka five-bet shoved with KJ and Julius called with AK. Julis’ hand held to give him a monster lead and Jaka was almost down to the felt. Julius finished off Jaka a couple of hands later, but not before doubling up Dibella in a massive pot where Dibella flopped a set against Julius’ overpair of aces.
Dibella chipped away at Julius over the course of a short bout of heads-up action, then picked off a bluff from his more experienced opponent to bring the match to a close. Dibella’s biggest cash prior to his $2 million victory was a $16,000 cash in none other than this event in 2008.
Here are the final table results from the PCA Main Event:
1st: – John Dibella – $2,000,000
2nd: Kyle Julius – $1,275,000
3rd: Faraz Jaka – $755,000
4th: Xuan Liu – $600,000
5th: Mike Drover – $488,000
6th: Anthony Gregg – $348,000
7th: David Bernstein – $260,000
8th: Ruben Visser – $156,400
The livestreaming action on PokerStars.tv continues on Saturday with the final table of the $25,000 High Roller event. Satellite qualifier Nick Yunis just missed out on the final table, finishing in ninth, but still collected a $79,770 payday. Other notables who finished in the money inlcuded Elio Fox (16th), Bill Perkins (15th), and Matt Marafioti (11th).
Poke Pro Jason Koon will begin the final table of the High Roller as chip leader with 1,646,000, but the red hot 2010 WSOP Main Event Champ Jonathan Duhamel is right behind him with 1,530,000. Nicolas Fierro, Issac Haxton, and Team PokerStars Online Pro Randy Lew are also part of the final table line-up, which gets underway at 12pm ET on Saturday.
Here are the chip counts and seat assignments for the PCA High Roller final table:
Seat 1: Isaac Haxton – 762,000
Seat 2: Leonid Bilokur – 1,139,000
Seat 3: Randy Lew – 197,000
Seat 4: Jonathan Duhamel – 1,530,000
Seat 5: Nicolas Fierro – 1,181,000
Seat 6: Jason Koon – 1,646,000
Seat 7: Michael Telker – 397,000
Seat 8: Govert Metaal – 545,000
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