PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Reportedly Discontinued After 16 Years

September 12, 2019 Mo Nuwwarah

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is no more.

After 16 years, most of it spent being one of the premier live stops on the international poker scene, PokerStars has opted to discontinue the event, according to reporting from PocketFives.

The relevant sentence comes at the bottom of the linked piece, in a quote from PokerStars Marketing Director Eric Hollreiser.

"It’s no secret that after 15 successful years, the PCA [prior to last year’s PSPC] has been losing momentum and there’s been increasing player criticism of the location,” Hollreiser said. “As such, we will not be returning to Paradise Island in 2020."

History of the PCA

PCA began as a partnership with the World Poker Tour, taking place on a cruise ship in 2004 and hosting a field of 221 players. Poker legend Gus Hansen would ship the inaugural event, then a $7,500 buy-in, for $455,780.

The next year the PCA moved to its famous home at Atlantis Resort, the sprawling and opulent set-up that occupies almost half of Paradise Island.

Over the years there, the series would eventually evolve into becoming part of PokerStars' European Poker Tour, with the buy-in goosed up to $10,300. It would eventually stand as one of just a few remaining $10K main events on the overall live schedule, although the buy-in was dropped to $5,300 for a couple of years, including the one year the event was rebranded as PokerStars Championship Bahamas in 2017.

Harrison Gimbel took down one of the biggest PCAs in 2010.

The PCA peaked in terms of prizes awarded in 2009, when little-known Canadian Poorya Nazari won a monstrous official first-place of $3 million, although it was widely reported thata deal had been struck at some point before the finish. In terms of entries, the PCA Main Event peaked during the two following years when 1,529 and 1,560 turned up, respectively.

The Main Event was far from the only big draw at PCA. It also hosted some of the first and biggest $100K events in poker before that was just another tournament in the procession of high rollers. The $25K High Roller was also usually one of the most well-attended on the calendar.

Declining Attendance

While the PCA for years could count itself a premier live poker stop, it had fallen on somewhat hard times in recent years.

After attendance peaked in 2011, the lack of online satellites available to North American players contributed to a large attendance drop back to 1,072 in 2012 — about two-thirds of the previous year's total. As the poker environment became tougher and edges shrank, the attractiveness of an expensive stay on an island resort went down as well.

A further drop of about 20 percent — from 1,031 to 816 — in 2015 convinced PokerStars brass to try lowering the buy-in to the aforementioned $5,300. The move did little, as a bump of about 100 entries just meant the prize pool dropped massively, awarding its first winner's prize below seven figures since 2005.

Things only got worse the following year, and 2018's return to $10,300 saw attendance drop in the number of entries to 582, a level not seen since 2005 as well.

The PCA received a major shot in the arm in 2019 when the PokerStars Players No-Limit Hold'em Championship was announced. While the landmark event would run alongside the PCA Main Event, the lure of the most lucrative $25K in history was enough to bring out plenty of grinders and push Main Event attendance back up to 865 for Chino Rheem's victory.

However, that always looked to be temporary fix given that the PSPC was thought to be a one-off and certainly looked unlikely to be repeated every year. With the news that the event will move to Barcelona for 2020, it was confirmed that there would be no similar life raft to keep the 2020 PCA afloat, and PokerStars opted to end the long-running event rather than risk continued decline.

Barring a reboot some time down the road, that means Rheem will go down as the final PCA Main Event champion, closing the books on one of poker's longest-running and most lucrative tournament series.

Chino Rheem will go down as the last PCA Main Event champion, barring a reboot down the road.

Tables of PCA Major Event Winners

Main Event

Year Buy-In Entries Total Prize Pool Winner First Prize 2004 $7,500 221 $1,657,500 Gus Hansen $455,780 2005 $8,000 461 $3,487,200 John Gale $890,600 2006 $8,000 724 $5,647,200 Steve Paul-Ambrose $1,388,600 2007 $8,000 937 $7,063,842 Ryan Daut $1,535,255 2008 $8,000 1,136 $8,562,976 Bertrand Grospellier $2,000,000 2009 $10,000 1,347 $12,674,000 Poorya Nazari $3,000,000 2010 $10,300 1,529 $14,831,300 Harrison Gimbel $2,200,000 2011 $10,300 1,560 $15,132,000 Galen Hall $2,300,000 2012 $10,300 1,072 $10,398,400 John Dibella $1,775,000 2013 $10,300 987 $9,573,900 Dimitar Danchev $1,859,000 2014 $10,300 1,031 $10,070,000 Dominik Panka $1,423,096 2015 $10,300 816 $7,915,200 Kevin Schulz $1,491,580 2016 $5,300 928 $4,500,800 Mike Watson $728,325 2017 $5,000 738 $3,376,712 Christian Harder $429,664 2018 $10,300 582 $5,645,400 Maria Lampropulos $1,081,100 2019 $10,300 865 $8,390,500 Chino Rheem $1,567,100

$100K Super High Roller

Year Entries Total Prize Pool Winner Prize 2011 38 $3,743,000 Eugene Katchalov $1,500,000 2012 32 $3,136,000 Viktor Blom $1,254,400 2013 55 $5,724,180 Scott Seiver $2,003,480 2014 56 $5,433,120 Fabian Quoss $1,629,940 2015 66 $6,402,000 Steve O'Dwyer $1,872,580 2016 58 $5,626,000 Bryn Kenney $1,687,800 2017 54 $5,239,080 Jason Koon $1,650,300 2018 48 $4,737,600 Cary Katz $1,492,340 2019 61 $5,918,220 Sam Greenwood $1,775,460

$25K High Roller

Year Entries Total Prize Pool Winner Prize 2009 48 $1,200,000 Bertrand Grospellier $433,500 2010 84 $2,057,998 William Reynolds $576,240 2011 151 $3,775,500 Will Molson $1,072,850 2012 148 $3,626,000 Alex Bilokur $1,134,930 2013 204 $4,998,000 Vanessa Selbst $1,424,420 2014 247 $6,051,500 Jake Schindler $1,192,624 2015 269 $6,456,000 Ilkin Garibli $1,105,040 2016 225 $5,400,000 Nick Maimone $996,480 2017 159 $3,895,500 Luc Greenwood $740,032 2018 142 $3,484,800 Chris Kruk $836,350 2019 162 $3,928,500 Martin Zamani $895,110

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