Lobzhanidze Takes Charge; Leads Day 1a Field
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After nine grueling levels of poker on Monday, Day 1a of the 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $10,000 Main Event is officially in the books. After bagging and tagging for the night, Maxim Lobzhanidze emerged as the leader of the returning 162 players. He bagged up 248,900 in chips. Following closely on his heels are Gilbert Diaz (215,900) and Darren Elias (191,000).
A total of 320 players came out to play in the first flight of play. Compared to the turnout in 2012, which sported a 418-player Day 1a, there was a significant decrease in attendance — 23.445% to be exact. This could be partially due to the Open-Face Chinese Poker tournament that occurred on the other side of the room today, drawing many big names to action. Regardless of any reason, Day 1b is expected to have a much larger field.
Several notable players have been able to rise above the stiff competition in this event and earn themselves solid stacks going into Day 2. Among those returning are Paul Volpe (186,200), Bolivar Palacios (142,000), Scott Clements (102,000), Brian Altman (84,200), Sam Grafton (71,900), Chris Moorman (70,500), Ville Wahlbeck (46,300), 2012 PCA Main Event fourth-place finisher Xuan Liu (42,500) and Team PokerStars Pro Joe Cada (34,000).
Calvin Anderson had a tremendous showing during play on Day 1a, and he will be returning on Day 2 sporting a stack of 159,000. We caught a hand during the first level of play where Anderson was heads up with an opponent on a board that read 
. Anderson moved out a bet of 8,000 chips into a pot of roughly 12,000. His opponent flung out a call, and Anderson rolled over the 
for a flopped full house. He dragged in that massive pot early and went on to trend upward for the rest of the day.
While Anderson and others thrived on the felt, others saw their PCA Main Event come to a relatively quick conclusion. Names like Joseph Cheong, Barry Greenstein Chad Brown, Jean-Robert Bellande, Adam Levy, Marcel Luske, Lex Veldhuis, Faraz Jaka and Randy Lew all fell before the end of the final level. Still, there are plenty of side events to dabble in and of course the amazing beaches of the Bahamas to enjoy.
Day 1b will kick off at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island at 12:00 EST tomorrow. The field of Day 1b plans to include the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Jason Mercier, Phil Hellmuth, Vanessa Selbst, Victor Ramdin, Brandon Cantu and Shaun Deeb, among many others, so be sure to stay tuned. Your loyal servants here at PokerNews will be on hand to provide you all of the latest updates from the tournament floor. Until tomorrow!