Reinkemeier Steals the Lead to End Day 1
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The poker world has been waiting patiently for the start of the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and Thursday was finally the day. The eighth annual festival of sunshine kicked off inside the massive ballroom inside the even-more-massive Atlantis Resort and Casino on Paradise Island. This year's gathering started off with a bang as the $100,000 Super High Roller event is the first date on the schedule. When this opener was first announced announced, the staff was hopeful they'd be able to fill two or three tables; instead, a full 38 players showed up to play, generating a prize pool of 3.743 million of which $1.5 million will go to the eventual champion. Among the runners were some of the biggest names in poker.
The list of people with $100,000 to drop on a single event is small, and the fact that everyone is already more-or-less familiar with each other created a unique and entertaining experience for the railbirds in attendance. PokerStars was well represented, sending Daniel Negreanu (Canada), Jason Mercier (USA), Humberto Brenes (Costa Rica), Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (France), Main Event champion Jonathan Duhamel (Canada), and Friend of PokerStars Bill Chen to the felt today. Of them, the Canadian had the best day, bagging up 848,000 chips to lead his fellow Team members into Day 2.
Negreanu's stack would have been the biggest in the room if the day had ended one hand earlier. It didn't, however, and Shawn Buchanan's aces didn't hold against Tobias Reinkemeier's pocket jacks, either. On the final hand of the night, Reinkemeier ran down a straight to crack Buchanan's aces and take the chip lead, stuffing 896,000 chips into his bag at day's end.
A hundred grand is several years' wages for some, but a handful of the players managed to burn through their six figures within just a few hours. After [Removed:39]'s cooler of an exit, businessman Bill Perkins was next to fall. He was down to about 100,000 chips (from his starting stack of 250,000) when he moved in with 
on a 
flop. Vivek Rajkumar snap-called with 
, and Perkins could not catch up on the 
turn or 
river. Just behind him went Scott Seiver after he reluctantly called off his stack with pocket queens against Phil Laak's 
. David Baker was one of the last to register and turn up – and one of the first to leave again. He got his money in good with against James Obst's 
, but the cruel 
board flushed away all but 7,000 of Baker's chips. Others who took the walk of shame today included Guy Laliberte, Masa Kagawa, Hoyt Corkins, Bill Chen, Jason Somerville, Ashton Griffin, Viktor Blom, Grospellier, and Duhamel.
That's a fine list of players, but it pales in comparison to the list of those set to return for Day 2. Laak is still alive, though he's got the shortest stack of just 99,000 chips left. His pal Antonio Esfandiari also survived, as did Daniel "jungleman12" Cates, Nick Schulman, Andrew Lichtenberger, Vivek Rajkumar, James "Andy McLEOD" Obst, Andrew Robl, Mike "Timex" McDonald, David Benyamine, and a total of 23 sharks.
Day 2 is slated to start at high noon again tomorrow, and we'll be back here to pick up the story. Until then, all that's left is goodnight!