The Final Table of the PCA Main Event is underway. Play will begin with only a few minutes left in level 29.
2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure
$5,300 Main Event
Day: 6
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure
Buy-in
$5,300
Prize Pool
$4,500,800
Entries
928
Level
35
Blinds
150,000 / 300,000
Ante
50,000
Welcome back to the sixth and final day of the 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $5,300 Main Event. Canadian poker star Mike Watson sits atop the final six players, and there is an $833,260 top prize up for grabs, but many eyes are solely fixed on Tony Gregg, who is making his third trip to the PCA Main Event final table after finishing second in 2009 and sixth in 2012.
Watson will enter the final day with 6.585 million in chips in the lead, and Gregg is his closest competitor with 5.68 million in second place.
Round out the final six are Vladimir Troyanovskiy, Toby Lewis, Phillip McAllister, and Randy Kritzer. Lewis is the only former European Poker Tour champion remaining, and Kritzer, a neurosurgeon from North Carolina, is the only true amateur.
The final six players reached this point in the event following the elimination of Australia's Ken Demlakian in seventh place on Wednesday night. Demlakian pocketed $110,220, and all of the remaining competitors have locked up at least $153,920.
The cards are scheduled to be in the air at 1 p.m. local time, but due to a one-hour delay because hole cards are being shown, coverage will begin at 2 p.m. Stay tuned right here to PokerNews to follow along as the event works its way to the 13th winner in its long and storied history.
The chip leader of the 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $5,300 Main Event final table is Canada's Mike Watson.
A man with over $8.3 million in live tournament earnings coming into this event, Watson is widely considered one of the best poker players in the world. His r��sum�� includes a 2008 World Poker Tour title worth $1.673 million, a 2012 World Series of Poker Europe �50,000 Majestic High Roller win worth �1 million ($1.304 million), and 12 other six-figure cashes. Watson's best European Poker Tour finish came from 2013's Barcelona Main Event when he took 47th.
Also of note are three stellar results big buy-in EPT events. Watson placed third in the 2008 EPT London ��20,000 High Roller for ��241,000 ($441,295), third in the 2012 EPT Barcelona �50,000 Super High Roller for �399,500 ($490,847), third in the 2013 PCA $25,000 High Roller for $462,320, seventh in the 2013 EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final �100,000 Super High Roller for �218,300 ($286,246), and second in the 2015 EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final �50,000 Super High Roller for �672,300 ($752,518).
As for the PCA Main Event, Watson has only cashed one other time outside of this run. That came in 2010 when he took 198th place for $15,000, a far cry from the money he's going to win here. Give Watson's skill, his experience, and his chip lead, there is no doubt that the man they call "SirWatts" is the favorite to walk away with the title.
Watson also has over $3 million in online tournament winnings, including two wins from the Spring Championship of Online Poker and two wins from the World Championship of Online Poker. Watson also has two runner-up finishes in SCOOP events, one of which is a 2012 score for $220,920 and his biggest prize in the online realm.
Watson currently ranks fifth on Canada's all-time money list, and 55th on the overall all-time money list.
Watson bagged up 6.585 million in chips after Day 5, and that's good for more than 900,000 ahead of Tony Gregg's second-place stack.
Russia's Vladimir Troyanovskiy is no stranger to success at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. In 2013, the 42-year-old won over $1 million from this event thanks to two big finishes worth $257,580 and $792,180. Those two scores came from a seventh-place finish in the $100,000 Super High Roller and a second-place finish in the $25,000 High Roller, respectively.
Troyanovskiy began playing poker at a very young age and grew up improving his skills in clubs in Moscow. His live results date back to 2003, but it took a decade before he broke out thanks to those two large results from the 2013 PCA.
With $3.991 million in live tournament earnings entering this event, Troyanovskiy has now eclipsed the $4 million mark thanks to the $153,920 score he's guaranteed here. That's a pretty penny for sure, but if Troyanovskiy were to bust in sixth place, it would only rank as the ninth largest score of his career.
With 5.025 million in chips entering Day 6, Troyanovskiy is third in chips amongst the final six with nearly 63 big blinds.
Randy Kritzer is the shortest stack returning in the final six, and he's the oldest competitor left. At 58 years old, Kritzer hails from Greensboro, North Carolina. As you may have guessed, Kritzer isn't a poker player by trade, but he does bring plenty of success to the mix.
Kritzer isn't a poker player by trade. He's a respected surgeon who specializes in neurosurgery and has been practicing since 1990. In 1992, Kritzer earned his certification from the American Board of Neurological Surgery, and he is the founder and president of Carolina Neurosurgery, P.A.
As for poker, Kritzer boasts just over $27,000 in live earnings. Two of his prior eight cashes have come from the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, both in 2015, but they are far from the $153,920 score he's locked up in this event by reaching the final six. Kritzer also has three World Series of Poker cashes on his r��sum��. The first of that trio came in at $13,978 and was the first live poker result for Kritzer.
Kritzer told PokerStars that he came to the PCA for just one event, this one, due to his work. It turned out to be the right event to play, as he's now reached the final table. Kritzer's run began on Day 1b when he finished with one of the biggest stacks going forward, taking the fourth overall stack into Day 2.
Tony Gregg's run to the final table has been nothing short of impressive, as the Maryland native, commonly referred to as poker's "end boss," has now reached the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure final table for a third time.
Back in 2009, Gregg showed up at the PCA with one recorded live cash for $8,625 under his belt, though he was an experienced and respected online player under the moniker "wwwBTHEREcom." He promptly booked a second-place finish for $1.7 million, falling heads up to online qualifier Poorya Nazari, who won the largest first-place prize in PCA Main Event history at $3 million.
Three years later, Gregg found himself at the final table once again. This time, he finished sixth for $364,000 in a tournament eventually won by John Dibella.
Gregg is now guaranteed at least $153,920 for this run, but our guess is that that's going to turn into a bit more. As it stands right now, Gregg has pocketed over $2.2 million in winnings from this event alone. The result has also already pushed him over $10 million in career live tournament earnings.
While Gregg has had an insanely successful career at PCA, his awards extend further. In 2012, Gregg won the World Poker Tour Parx Open Poker Classic for $416,127. Less than a year later, he took second to Steven Silverman in the European Poker Tour Monte Carlo Grand Final �25,500 High Roller for �760,000 ($996,551). Then, just over a month after his runner-up finish in Monaco, Gregg scored $4.83 million when he won the 2013 World Series of Poker $111,111 One Drop High Roller.
Thanks to a late charge on Day 5, Gregg will enter the final day of play with 5.68 million in chips. That's good enough for second place overall, and we'll see if the third time is a charm for Gregg.
Phillip McAllister is the youngest member of the 2016 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure final table at 22 years old. Although he hails from the UK, McAllister currently resides in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, where he focuses his time on playing online poker.
McAllister plays on PokerStars under the screen name "Grindation," and he boasts over $2 million in winnings. The largest chunk of those winnings came in the middle of 2014 when he finished fifth in the Spring Championship of Online Poker's $10,300 Main Event �� the high edition �� for $350,838. McAllister also has scores of $232,960, $154,010, and $117,096 from the online realm.
In the live poker arena, McAllister's accolades are far less. He has just shy of $180,000 in live earnings, but he's already set to just about double that with a guarantee of $153,920 by reaching this point in the PCA Main Event. McAllister's aggressive play has drawn him plenty of attention since he moved into the top 10 in chips on Day 2, and now we'll see if he can transition his online poker experience in order to book a huge win in a marquee live event.
With 3.04 million in chips, McAllister sits ahead of only Randy Kritzer amongst the final six, but he still has a fair amount of play in his stack with 38 big blinds.
Toby Lewis is a British professional poker player and the only former European Poker Tour champion remaining in the field. He was also the early chip leader of this event, finishing atop of the pack of survivors after Day 1a and landing the overall lead heading into Day 2.
Lewis' live poker career dates back to 2009, but his big break came at the beginning of the second half of 2010 when he won the EPT Vilamoura �5,300 Main Event to �467,836 ($594,568). To earn the title, Lewis had to defeat 2014 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Martin Jacobson. That win propelled Lewis into the international poker spotlight, and he's done quite well for himself in the years since, racking up nearly $2.7 million in live tournament earnings throughout his career.
That big EPT win has held strong as the largest score of Lewis' career leading up to this point, but he boasts six other six-figure paydays.
Outside of the live realm, Lewis has quite a successful record in online poker. Specifically on PokerStars, where he plays under the screen name "810ofclubs," Lewis has bagged nearly $3.5 million in winnings. The biggest of this bunch was worth �232,400 ($304,735) when he scored fifth place in the 2013 EPT Monte Carlo Grand Final �25,500 High Roller.
According to PokerStars, "Lewis started playing poker in casinos, mostly low buy-in tournaments, when he turned 18." Lewis moved to online cash games after he graduated college, but he soon went back to multi-table tournaments thanks to a few wins in 2009 that sparked his enthusiasm.
With 4.665 million in chips to enter Thursday's final day of play, Lewis is fourth in chips amongst the remaining six players. He's already guaranteed himself $153,920 and the fourth largest score of his career, and a victory would not only be his largest ever, but it would also vault him into the select ranks of two-time EPT winners.
$5,300 Main Event
Day 6 Started