PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Day 2: Praz Bansi Leads
The PokerStars.net Caribbean Adventure continued play Thursday with the remaining 884 players returning to action. After six levels of play, Praz Bansi bagged up the most chips and will be the man to catch going into Day 3 with 960,800 chips.
Bansi came into the day with an above average stack and never seemed to look back once he started picking up steam. For over half of the day, Bansi was seated in the back of the room at what was easily the toughest table in the room.
Seated with Bansi were Jonathan "FatalError" Aguiar, Terrence "Unassigned" Chan, Justin Bonomo, Glen Chorny and Dario Minieri. Bansi picked his way through the minefield of top pros at his table and quickly amassed one of the top stacks in the room.
A little over halfway through the day, the table broke, and Bansi moved to share the felt with Team PokerStars Pro JC Alvarado. It wasn't long before the two took their big stacks to war.
On a flop of Q♥ 6♣ J♣, Bansi fired 7,000 after Alvarado checked the action to him. The Mexican pro check-raised to 21,000. Bansi wasn't about to slow down when he made a three-bet to 45,000. Alvarado kept his foot on the gas with a four-bet to 90,000 and Bansi just called. The dealer turned the 4♣ and Alvarado checked. Bansi moved all-in, having his opponent covered. Alvarado made the call for the approximate 200,000 chips he had left.
When the hands were revealed, Alvarado rolled over Q♠ Q♦ for top set. Bansi held the best hand though, turning a club flush with his 10♣ 7♣. The river card failed to pair the board for Alvarado when the 5♦ landed and Bansi was rocketed to well over 700,000 chips.
The chip leader coming into the day, Wayne Bentley, finished Day 2 with another one of the biggest stacks in the room. The day began to go wrong for Bentley as he lost pot after pot, bleeding chips. After losing about half of the stack he entered the day with, Bentley charged back up the ranks and finished with 602,500.
Marc Etienne McLaughlin (702,400), Eric Froelich (467,500), Jeff Madsen (290,200) and Matt Graham (428,900) also had extremely profitable days.
Toward the end of the day, Graham boosted his stack by sending Annette Obrestad to the rail when his A♠ K♦ held up against the shorter-stacked Obrestad's A♦ Q♣ in preflop all-in action.
Some of the Team PokerStars Pros moving on to Day 3 are Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Lodden, John Duthie and Florian Langmann. Friend of PokerStars and former great Major League Baseball pitcher Orel Hershiser moved on as well. Amnon Filippi, Justin Bonomo and Phil Ivey also survived.
Barry Greenstein, Humberto Brenes, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Noah Boeken and Marcel Luske are some of the Team PokerStars members who failed to avoid elimination. Former WSOP Main Event champion and fellow team member Peter Eastgate also fell short.
Day 3 will begin on Friday at 12:00 p.m. EST with the remaining players returning to the felt. Nearly $15 million is up for grabs in The Bahamas and everyone left has their eyes set on the prize. With 224 players being paid, it is expected that the the money bubble burst at some point during Friday's action.
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