The first-ever PokerStars Players Championship played down from 38 players to the final eight on Day 4 of action. On Day 5, they will be playing down to a champion. The top six places pay out at least $1 million with the winner banking $5.1 million. American pro Scott Baumstein is the big stack with 10.7M, followed by Marc Rivera, Julien Martini, Farid Jattin, Roman, Colillas, Jason Koonce, Talal Shakerchi, and Marc Perrault.
It's been a wild ride in the Bahamas. Over a year ago, Daniel Negreanu tipped everyone off about a crazy idea PokerStars was having in which they would give away 320 seats to a $25,000 tournament that would be held during the PCA. At first I thought someone dosed Kid Poker, or maybe he was huffing too much paint thinner. But then word got out from PokerStars HQ about their new brain child called the PokerStars Players Championship or cutely named the PSPC. They intended to host the biggest tournament in the world and it seemed like an ambitious task until they actually pulled it off. Sure, it wasn't easy and it took nonstop promotion around the clock on all social media and gaming platforms. But kudos to the staff, promo team, and the blogging crew for getting the word out about the PSPC and the coveted Platinum Passes. The Passes seemed like a joke at first, but they became like the golden ticket from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Too bad the winner of the PSPC doesn't become the new, supreme owner of PokerStars. Now that would be an event I'd play in!
The PSPC attracted 1,039 runners, which is a sick number any way you cut it. Even with the 320 added passes, they still pulled in a significant amount of heavyweights sharks, semi-pros, recs, and more dead money that I had not seen since the gravy days of the online poker boom.
Only the top 181 places paid out. The money bubble finally burst on Day 3. A total of 38 players returned for Day 4 and only 8 were left standing.
Among the notables who bounced on Day 4 included... Florian Duta, Pedro, Padiha, Kristne Bicknell, Jake Schwartz, Yiannis Liperis, Griffin Benger, Chris Johnson, Louis Bountin, cott Stewart, Luis Fara, Luigi Knoppers, Jack O'Neill, Mike Robionek, Luke Marsh, Sam Tsehai, Martins Adeniya, Joao Barbosa, Adrian Samu, Marvin Rettenmaier, Sosia Jiang, Filipe Oliveria, Antanas Pvalov, Luarynas Levinskas, Rui Sousa, EvanMathis, Tony Gregg, Jon West, Jackie Burkhart, and the Badmanz himself Mikita Badziakouski, who busted in 34th place.
Canada's Kristen Bicknell went super deep but missed the final table by several spots. Her epic run ended in 11th place.
Scott Baumstein retained the lead for another day. He headed into the final day of action with over 10.7M in chips. Also still alive were: Marc Rivera, Julien Martini, Farid Jattin, Roman, Colillas, Jason Koonce, Talal Shakerchi, and Marc Perrault.
For excellent coverage in French, follow along with venustyle for his kick-ass updates. And there's also the award-winning coverage from PokerStars Blog.
PokerStars Players Championship
Buy-in: $25,000
Prize Pool: $26,455,500
Entrants: 1,039
Payouts: 181
Final Table Payouts:
1. $5,100,000
2. $2,974,000
3. $2,168,000
4. $1,657,000
5. $1,304,000
6. $1,012,000
You can watch the final table action here...
