Alex Venovski Leads Day 1b
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Day 1b of the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event is in the books and after nine hours of play, 342 entrants survived with Alex Venovsky (193,000) leading the way. The second flight attracted 654 runners, making the total field for the event 1,072 players, and creating a total prize pool of $10,398,400. If you finish 160th or higher, you’re guaranteed a minimum of $15,000. If you make the final table, you’ve earned $101,000. If you run white hot, make the final table, and win the 2012 PCA Main Event, then you’ve earned a cool $2 million.
Venovski, a UK native, jumped out to 180,000 before dinner break and never looked back. After adding a few small pots during the last three levels, Venovski bagged 193,000, making him the Day 1b chip leader. Ironically, Venovski will start Day 2 at Table 19, Seat 3. There were a handful of other players who crossed the century mark today, including Chino Rheem (182,900), Jonathan Jaffe (182,000), Phil D’Auteuil (170,800), and Luca Pagano (136,300).
Rheem played a very bizarre pot to end the day. After a series of preflop raises, he was all in against Tyler Kenney for 120,000 chips. Kenney tabled to kings, and Chino said, “aces,” but flipped over 
. Rheem, who apparently misread his hand, was very perplexed, but an ace on the river saved him, and eliminated Kenney from play.
PokerStars Team Pro Lex Veldhuis flew out of the gate, doubling in the first half hour of the day. The Dutch pro flopped a set of sevens on a king high board, and was all in on the turn against a player with top-top. The gentleman was drawing dead, and after a meaningless card hit the river, Veldhuis doubled to 60,000 chips. He peaked at around 90,000 during the middle of the day, but has since cooled off, finishing the day with just 40,000 chips.
Veldhuis may have started off hot, but no one ran hotter than fellow Team Pro Arnaud Mattern. In a ten-minute span during Level 3, Mattern was dealt aces twice, rocketed his stack to over 150,000 chips. After treading water for the next six levels, Mattern bagged up 139,300 chips, and is among the chip leaders.
Team PokerStars was well represented on Day 1b, but unfortunately we lost 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion Pius Heinz, Martin Staszko, Jason Mercier, Daniel Negreanu, Vanessa Rousso, Eugene Katchalov, and Nacho Barbero. Other notables who failed to survive the day include, Olivier Busquet, Peter Jetten, Amit Makhija, Dan Shak, and Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy.
Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, who won the Super High Roller and over $1.25 million last night, late registered and made a $10,000 last-longer bet with Harry “UgotaBanana” Kaczka. Kaczka won the bet without much of a sweat – Blom busted in Level 5 when he lost a race with 
against an opponent’s 
. The 
flop was about as bet as it gets for Blom, and he was out after the turn and river came 
, 
respectively.
Outside of the tournament, Randy “nanonoko” Lew set a Guinness World Record for the most poker hands played in an eight-hour period. Lew, who was a stone’s throw from the media table, amassed 23,493 hands during the session, profiting $8.91. Our good friend Brad Willis covered Lew’s progress throughout the day, and his observations and comments can be found here.
Tomorrow, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event will resume at noon island time, and for the first time the entire field will be together. Join us here for all of your live updates, but until then, have goodnight from the Bahamas!