Poker News

Galen Hall wins PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event and $2.3 Million

2011 marked the biggest ever PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event as 1,560 players competed for a massive $15,132,000 prize pool. And American Galen Hall took the largest share of this prize pool after winning the PCA Main Event and the $2.3 million top prize.

Of course, this tournament was by no means a walk in the park for Hall since he had to survive a grueling 9-hour final table. In addition to this, fellow American Chris Oliver held a 5:1 chip advantage over Hall when heads-up play began. Amazingly, Hall was able to overcome this deficit and defeat Oliver after a long duel.

After winning, Hall told media members, “I feel pretty awesome. It still hasn't set in yet. We played heads-up for a really long time so I haven't been thinking about the win. Up until this event, I've been a very terrible live tournament player. I have a pretty impressive track record of busting on Day 1.”

Here’s how the rest of the PCA Main Event final table fared:

1. Galen Hall - $2.3 million
2. Chris Oliver - $1.8 million
3. Anton Ionel - $1.3 million
4. Sam Stein - $1 million
5. Mike Sowers - $700,000
6. Bolivar Palacios - $450,000
7. Max Weinberg - $300,000
8. Phillipe Plouffe - $202,000

Besides Hall’s victory, some of the best stories of the day included Oliver, Ionel, and Plouffe’s finishes since these players all won their $10k PCA seats through PokerStars satellites. If you have dreams of winning $1.8 million as a satellite qualifier like Oliver did, you should sign up for PokerStars and use the bonus code “STARS600” to get a signup bonus of 100% up to $600.

Who knows….you could even satellite your way into the WSOP Main Event, and win millions of dollars like Chris Moneymaker did - who, by the way, finished 11th in the PCA Main Event and cashed for $130,000.

One other story from the PCA worth mentioning is that Daniel Negreanu became the all-time poker tournament money winner after finishing second in the $100,000 PCA High Roller event. Negreanu cashed for $1 million after being defeated by Eugene Katchalov ($1.5 million), which put him ahead of Phil Ivey in all-time tournaments winnings at $14,100,000.

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