Thursday, 28th March 2024 10:42
Home / Uncategorized / PCA 2016: Leonardo Pires powers to chip lead; O’Dwyer is O’Dwyer

Let’s begin today’s tournament report with a number. It’s 833,260. Add a dollar sign to the front of that number, and suddenly you’ll understand its relevance to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Main Event.

That’s the number of dollars that will be signed over to the winner of this thing.

Day 2 of these major tournaments always bring plenty of action–we have cut our starting field of 928 down to 200–but it’s only really that dollar amount that offers relevance to this pursuit. Those 200 players now have a firm target to race towards.

Leonardo Pires, from Brazil, is at the front of the field at this stage, having bagged 524,000 chips tonight. He spent long periods of the afternoon with his feet propped on an empty chair next to him, vacated by the long line of players he managed to knock out.

leonardo_pires_pca2016_day2_wrap.jpg

Leonardo Pires: Chip leader
 

Pires plays very fast, and he plays a lot of pots. He has put himself in pole position for a place at the feature table some time this week, where you’ll be able to see for yourself.

For all Pires’s exploits today, this is going to be another evening during which Steve O’Dwyer is demanding of headlines. O’Dwyer played Day 1A of the Main Event, but spent Day 1B in the $50,000 Single Day High Roller, which he won at around about 3.30am last night.

There was no way he could afford to sleep in, however, as he had barely more than 30,000 in his stack to begin Day 2 and could ill afford to blind away. So O’Dwyer did what O’Dwyer does best: He sat at a poker table and accumulated a lot of chips.

At bagging time, O’Dwyer was in the top three overall with 430,900. It was yet another sensational day in O’Dwyer’s sensational poker life.

steve_odwyer_pca2016_day2_wrap.jpg

Steve O’Dwyer
 


Next year, it could be you! Click here to get a PokerStars account so you can qualify.


Plenty of others weren’t so fortunate. There will be no second title for Kevin Schulz. He was eliminated today. Isaac Haxton, Vanessa Selbst, Daniel Negreanu, Victor Ramdin, Patrik Antonius, Joe McKeehen, Jaime Staples, Chris Moorman, Ryan Riess, Ole Schemion, Chris Moneymaker, Daniel Colman, Bryn Kenney and Mustapha Kanit are only a handful of those eliminated today.

jaime_staples_pca2016_day2.jpg

Jaime Staples: Back to Twitch
 

jennifer_shahade_pca2016_day2.jpg

Jennifer Shahade: Left in the red
 

Despite that, this is still a wickedly tough field. Among those heading into day three are the following, who are notable tonight either for their reputation or their chip stack, sometimes both:

Franco Spitale 432,300
Siarhei Melianiuk 428,900
Sam Simmons 421,400
Phillip McAllister 420,000
Ramin Hajiyev 310,100
Mike Watson 298,800
Anthony Gregg 272,300
Fabian Ortiz 262,500
Kevin MacPhee 182,400
Talal Shakerchi 167,000
Jason Koon 142,000
Olivier Busquet 117,300
Toby Lewis 116,400
Felipe Ramos 99,000
Jeff Rossiter 87,300
Jason Mercier 78,100
Davidi Kitai 72,000

jason_mercier_ramin_hajiyev.jpg

Jason Mercier and Ramin Hajiyev: Feature table friends
 

More counts are over on the chip-count page and you can take a look back on how they got there in our two-part thriller entitled “Day 2 live updates. Part 1 and Part 2.” The box-set will be available soon.

Tomorrow–Day 3–is bubble day. Only 135 players will be paid in this event, so more than will still leave with nothing. The first order of business tomorrow will be to determine who makes the cut.

Join us from noon.

 

Study Poker with Pokerstars Learn, practice with the PokerStars app