2007 PCA Day 1A

2007 PCA Day 1B

2007 PCA Day 2

2007 PCA Day 3

2007 PCA Day 4

2007 PCA Final Table

2007 PCA Winner

2007 PCA Payout structure

Moneymaker Millionaire Players

Moneymaker Millionaire Winner

Moneymaker Millionaire Live Blog

Anyone who started the final table today had to be looking at Isaac Haxton's chip stack and thinking, "Well, what am I going to do up against that?" Haxton had around half the chips in play.

As it turned out, there was, indeed, a way to win, and Ryan Daut figured it out. over the course of the day, he picked his spots well, made a few good calls, and got heads up with Haxton. Haxton had a 3-1 chip lead going into heads up play, but in just the first few hands, Daut drew even. Then over the course of the next hour, Daut slugged away and carved giant hunks out of Haxton's stack. Finally, Daut had a huge chip lead and found AT. He set Haxton all in. Haxton called with Q8 and couldn't find a way to win the hand.




Ryan Daut





Suddenly, Ryan Daut, a man with dreams of being a poker professional, had won the first major poker tournament of the year, and more than $1.5 million. (For a complete live blog of the final table, read the 2007 PCA Final Table live blog).

2007 PCA Final Table Results

1. Ryan Daut--$1,535,255
2. Isaac Haxton--$861,789
3. Robert Ford--$550,980
4. Robert Mizrachi--$409,703
5. Jonathan Little--$317,873
6. Frank Rusnak--$247,234

Ryan Daut's poker story

There was a time when the only game Ryan Daut cared about was StarCraft. He was competitive and it satisfied his need to do battle. Back in 2004, some of his friends told him about he could make some easy money playing poker. So, he depositied $45 and started playing the lowest fixed limit tables he could find. He turned into a grinder and turned than $45 into $600 over the course of a year.


Ryan Daut playing at the 2007 PCA

Two summers ago, he ended up with a seat to the World Series of Poker. The thing was, he hadn't played much no-limit poker, and in his words, "I kind of freaked out."

"I picked up the game pretty fast," he once wrote. "In that month and a half, I learned a lot, and by the time I went out to Vegas, I had about a 2k roll and I was a 100nl grinder, a real nit."

After Vegas, he went on a rollercoaster bankroll run and ended up taking a break from poker. Over a spring break, he didn't have much to do. So he concentrated on his game and by the time he graduated, he had a $10,000 roll. Since then, he's started playing even biggers and going through the swings that high-volume no-limit players face.

He ended up buying directly into the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure this year. He's now in grad school with the goal of getting a PhD in math. That said, he really plans to be a pro poker player. Already a Supernova on PokerStars, he was well on his way. Now, he has $1.5 million and a WPT title under his belt.

That's a pro, folks.

Congratulations Ryan.

Note: A word of thanks to the entire PokerStars crew who worked without regard for their health or welfare for the last eight days. It's been a real pleasure, folks. Also, to all the players, I know full well that the PokerStars staff thanks you for making this another fabulous PCA.

Isaac Haxton 3,754,000
Jon Little 2,084,000
Robert Mizrachi 1,798,000
Antonio Ribeiro 1,532,000
Robert Ford 1,313,000
Ryan Daut 1,226,000
Scott Clements 1,060,000
Justin Bonomo 1,052,000
Paul Lui 807,000
Frank Rusnak 806,000
Jon Friedberg 792,000
Joe Marcal 629,000
Erik Riise 620,000
Mario Silvestri 548,000
Luis Chan 433,000
Frank Parisi 289,000

Starting field: 937
Total prize pool: $ 7,063,842
Places paid: 180

$1,535,255

1. Daut, Ryan

$861,789

2. Haxton, Isaac

$550,980

3. Ford, Robert

$409,703

4. Mizrachi, Robert

$317,873

5. Little, Jonathan

$247,234

6. Frank Rusnak

$187,192

7. Ribeiro, Antonio

$151,873

8. Clements, Scott

$123,617

9. Friedberg, Jon

$98,894

10. Lui, Paul

$77,702

11. Bonomo, Justin

$59,336

12. Silvestri, Mario

$45,915

13. Parisi, Frank
14. Chan, Luis
15. Riise, Erik
16. Marcal, Joe

$36,026
17. Jewett, James
18. Rinaldi, Claudio
19. Kwan, Kin W.
20. Paul-Ambrose, Steven

$28,255

21. Patel, Emil
22. Fricke, James V.
23. Smyrski, Mark E.
24. Bryan, Mark A.
25. Athanasoulis, Peter

$21,898

26. Molinari, Matthew
27. Carlson, Michael R.
28. Kilarjan, James A.
29. Sykes, David R.
30. Porter, Ralph E.

$17,787
31. Peters, David P.
32. Drane, Jonathan C.
33. Guinther, James R.
34. Lios, Peter
35. Buchman, Eric J.
36. Brawer, Maxx O.
37. Renstrom, Erik D.
38. O'Dwyer, Stephen P.
39. Lawson, Edward J.
40. Lavallee, Jason
41. Binger, Michael W.
42. Ham, Mack
43. Ramdin, Victor
44. Wendt, Martin
45. Monnette, John E.
46. Carrillo, Paulo Simon
47. Lusby, George J.
48. Kanter, Aaron Paul
49. Meredith, Michael J.
50. Mullins, Donald C.

$14,128
51. Medic, Nenad
52. Mitrokostas, Spiro
53. McCarrell, Casey S.
54. Gaynor, Stephen J.
55. Baldwin, Eric S.
56. Fortin, Patrick
57. Rav, Thomas A.
58. Householder, Curtis A.
59. Chambers, Walter Lee
60. Lomas, Dane A.
61. James, Anne Marie
62. Conkright, John M.
63. Fournier, Stephane
64. Garlton, Donald J.
65. Lichtie, Matthew J.
66. Michaels, Alex D.
67. Livia, Thomas M.
68. Martin, Eddylee
69. Law, Jimmy
70. Bean, Glen A.
71. Levy, Marc Alan
72. Anjaria, Mitesh
73. Madden, Patrick W.
74. Lococo, Daniel M.
75. Hart, Jonathan J.
76. Ismay, Wesley R.
77. Lellouche, Anthony
78. Paredes, David
79. Fadeyi, Abdul
80. Williams, David A.

$11,797
81. Konig, Shawn
82. Brody, Jonathan
83. Downs, Joseph IV
84. Leventhal, Scott
85. Strochak, Jason M.
86. Hasman, Ronald
87. Trinh, Minh
88. Nguyen, Anh Van
89. Sanders, Adam
90. Drobushevich, Shae
91. Grøneng, Øyvind
92. Pukanich, Randy
93. Shulman, Barry
94. Campbell, James
95. Straub, Spencer
96. Simpson, Robert
97. McDougall, Jason
98. O'Donnell, Kyle
99. Sullivan, Joseph
100. Redmerski, Brandon
101. Baron, Issac
102. Lindsay, Brian
103. Hiatt, Samuel
104. Thurman, Dean
105. Tovil, Fabrice
106. Martin, Christopher
107. Serock, Joseph
108. Andrews, John
109. Pham, John
110. Wilson, Scott
111. Taylor, Jason
112. Gamble, Troy A
113. Pezzin, Patrick
114. Pullen, Brett
115. Smith, Clavis Alan
116. Marcotte, Kevin
117. Henrion, jean-Michel
118. Petronack, Jeffrey
119. Ruprecht, Martin
120. Sousa, Marco
121. Taylor, Paul
122. Albert Riccobono
123. Michael Joseph
124. Shawn Deeb
125. Shannon Shorr
126. Stanley Barton
127. Chris Smith
128. Michael Guadano
129. Ben Sprengers
130. Daniel Negreanu

$9,889

131. Guy Longworth
132. John Bolton
133. Terrence Eischens
134. Charles Sunderland
135. Michael Kats
136. Randall Urman
137. Brian Clark
138. Charles Butler
139. Pavel Feldman
140. Richard Whittington
141. Mike McStott
142. Efrain Lopez
143. Raplh Ratchford
144. James Mackey
145. Gerald Treglido
146. Anthony Cousineau
147. Neil Chriss
148. Jeffery Pursell
149. Kyle Brossia
150. Dan Assor
151. Larry Vezina
152. Nathan Adler
153. Bernard Shapiro
154. William Jensen
155. Patrick O'Malley
156. David Singer
157. Carl Landrum
158. Mathhew Graham
159. Todd Combs
160. Michael Farris
161. Joshua Smith
162. Chris Lee
163. Kian Kiarash
164. Joseph Melancon
165. Nicholas Stowe
166. Lee Anderson
167. Ryan Jones
168. Aaron Lerner
169. Gregory Smith
170. Randy Levin
171. Sean Galusha
172. Edward Barron
173. Willaim Kopp
174. Bernardo Herszkopf
175. Jonathan Aguiar
176. Chris McCormack
177. Jeffrey Anderson
178. Rufus Nagel
179. Joseph Bell
180. Ziad Alameddine

Starting field: 937
Total prize pool: $ 7,063,842
180 places paid

1: $1,535,255
2: $861,789
3: $550,980
4: $409,703
5: $317,873
6: $247,234
7: $187,192
8: $151,873
9: $123,617
10: $98,894
11: $77,702
12: $59,336
13-16: $45,915
17-20: $36,026
21-25: $28,255
26-30: $21,898
31-50: $17,787
51-80: $14,128
81-130: $11,797
131-180: $9,889

The Atlantis towers of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Welcome Party

The best way to get a bunch of poker players together and make them like actually each other is to keep cards and chips at a distance. This accomplishment is not an easy task, but is routinely handled by the PokerStars staff on the first night of a PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. This is the night on which PokerStars hosts a massive welcome party...in advance of the poker room opening. Tonight, with a full 2.5 hours before cards flew, PokerStars took over the Royal Deck of the Atlantis Resort and threw what folks from my hometown would call a big ol' party.














The lovely PokerStars Support Team at the welcome party


PokerStars' Dan Goldman welcomes the crowd




The occasion was a great opportunity to run into people that we all see just a couple times a year. I ran into all kinds of folks that I've seen everywhere from Monte Carlo to Las Vegas. From tons of free food to gallons of drinks, PokerStars' ability to throw a party is unparalleled in the poker world. Here's a quick look at the world of PokerStars' pre-party.


2006 PCA champion Steve Paul-Ambrose and girlfriend Nathalie


Humberto Brenes, Rich Korbin, and Lee Jones


Team PokerStars' John Duthie, creator of the European Poker Tour


Team PokerStars' Barry Greenstein and Joe Sebok


The Hachems


Team PokerStars' Katja Thater


Team PokerStars' Chris Moneymaker and his daughter


Moon over the PCA


Supernovas ElKy and Dario Minieri chat about what it's like to have more FPPs than can possibly exist


Team PokerStars' Greg Raymer talks to Chris Moneymaker's father


Supernova Spiro Mitrokostas and his wife Jenny


The poker room, 15 minutes after opening

As I type, the $200 rebuy super satellite to the main event, big-time SNGs, and cash games are all going off in the poker room. In a little more than 12 hours, the main event of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure will begin. Keep it here for full coverage over the next week.

I like food. A lot. I'm the type of guy who will eat a Lucky Dog in the French Quarter or follow my food guru to Michael Mina in Las Vegas. Not only that, I enjoy cooking and am happy to bury my hands in some raw meat. As such, I actually (contrary to the wisdom of Otto von Bismarck) don't mind watching the sausage-making process.

That's what the early part of this day at the 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is all about. It's about finding hotel rooms for hundreds of people, making sure all the tournaments are in order, and making sure the chips and dealer buttons haven't gone out for a powder. The PokerStars crew is doing a fine job of making sure all is well and any problems are handled with all due speed. Me? I'm readying myself for the PokerStars Welcome Party tonight at 7pm and trying to explain to folks how one hour in the sun is enough merit a Caribbean sunburn. I've also been poking my nose in on the sausage-making process.

Players line up at the registration desk outside the Atlantis Grand Ballroom


Lee Jones toils in the PokerStars office


One of around 800 premium bags being handed to PokerStars qualifiers when they arrive (this year they are leather!)


The poker room, now with more tables, sits ready for the first action

The sun is again setting on Atlantis. Here in just a bit, we'll all make the trek over for the big Welcome Party. Then...well, then it's time for poker.

The airport smelled the same, a combination of carpet and island humidity. The immigration and customs officials greeted me with the same look of island relaxation I've come to expect when I touch down in the Caribbean. The cab ride cost the same, though I learned if I'd come a few months earlier, I would've paid more.

"$3.80 a gallon," the cabbie said in broken English when asked how much it cost to fuel up his minivan. "It was as high as $5.00 a gallon."

Here on this island, the government regulates how much the cab drivers can charge guys like me as we make our way from airport to Paradise Island. Back when gas was $5.00, the government let the cabbies make up their costs with higher fares. I was pleased to learn, though, my cab ride would still cost me $28 and the time it takes to navigate through cruise ship foot traffic in downtown Nassau. Really, it's a small price to pay when the minivan door slides open to reveal the biggest (and growing) resort in this part of the world.



This is now my third trip to Atlantis. The first trip was full of awe at both the enormity of the place and PokerStars' ability to put on a first-class poker tournament on an island where poker is usually verboten.

The second trip, I felt more in my element. The tournament had grown and PokerStars' efforts had grown with it. Now, on this third visit, this place is starting to feel like a winter home. I know the back hallways, the shortcuts, and the quickest place to run and check the NFL scores on playoff weekend.

I've written before that the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is more than a tournament. It's a poker players convention where stories come out of nowhere and future champions emerge from the masses. I shared a plane here with a World Series of Poker main event champion and a European Poker Tour Grand Final winner. I wasn't on the property for half an hour before Lee Jones grabbed me.

"I already have something for the blog," he said with an exuberance I've come to both expect and appreciate. Lee pulled a slip of paper from a stack by his laptop and pointed to it.

"Dario Minieri is here," he said. I could tell by the look on his face that Minieri wasn't the full story.

Apparently Minieri brought a bit of a posse with him. One of his Italian buddies did not yet have a seat in the main event. He came anyway. And then he played the very last $475 satellite PokerStars held. And he won his seat. If I understood correctly, the short version goes: Italian player leaves Italy to travel to Bahamas where he is not expecting to play in a poker tournament, but plays online and wins a seat anyway.

That's the kind of thing that happens here. And that's why I come. Because, for all I know, that guy is going to go on to win this thing within the next nine days.

When I arrive to any poker tournament venue, I like to walk around and get the lay of the land. Thing is, as I explained to a few folks, I know this place. I've seen it.

I wondered for a second if there was anything I hadn't seen. Then I figured it out. I've never seen the Dragon Deck at Atlantis without millions of dollars being at stake. So, I took a walk.


The Atlantis Dragon Deck, sans excitement

To be sure, the Dragon Deck has a pretty view, but there's not a lot to it today. It's wide open. If you've never seen it, it likely looks nice. But, let me remind you what it looked like this time last year:



That's what the Dragon Deck looks like when somebody wins more than a million bucks on the World Poker Tour. And that's what PokerStars offers at the Caribbean Adventure.

That said, it's going to be more than a week before we get to that deck outside. There is a lot to do between now and then. The main event kicks off on Friday. That's not to mention the Moneymaker Millionaire Freeroll Finals that will play out on Saturday or the World Championship of Battleship Poker at the beginning of next week.

We'll get to all that. The camera batteries are charged. The laptop seems to be in working order (despite having survived two years of hardcore tournament coverage). The coverage here will kick off in earnest on Friday.

In the meantime, most of the players will start arriving tomorrow in time for the kickoff party and live satellite to the main event. Even better, for those of us who don't have to oil the laptop gears and plan for a week's worth of coverage, there's a whole bunch of paradise out there to see.


The first fish I spotted (note: the poker tables are not yet open)



A few suggestions, if I may be so bold. If you make it down here, take a walk over to the marina and check out some of the yachts that have tied up. These things boast more square feet of living space than my house.


How much of these boats would your lifetime winnings buy?


Patriotism, yacht-style

Keep walking around and you'll see some of the other sights Atlantis has to offer.





When -EV sounds like a good idea...


When EV is calculated in sunlight and serotonin


When you've given up on calculating EV and want to jump off a ledge




When I left my house, it was 35 degrees outside. The plane was delayed because the frost had to be melted off the wings. I thought I suffered hypothermia on the jetway when I changed planes. So, all in all, covering a poker tournament in paradise is a pretty good way to spend the first part of the new year. The only better way would be playing in the PCA....which hundreds of people are going to start doing here in just a couple days.

Keep your eyes right here for full coverage. Or, better yet, watch a good sunset until the cards get in the air. It's good for the soul.


The sun sets over Atlantis