There were just seven players who returned for the final day of the 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $100,000 Super High Roller event. The final table was stacked with top-flight poker talent that was led in chips by Nick Schulman, and he was joined by headliner and Team PokerStars pro Daniel Negreanu, as well as one of his good friends Eugene Katchalov. Here is a look at the chip counts at the start of play:
Nick Schulman USA 2,990,000
Daniel Negreanu Canada Team PokerStars Pro 2,166,000
Eugene Katchalov USA 1,476,000
Bryn Kenney USA PokerStars Player 1,390,000
Humberto Brenes Costa Rica Team PokerStars Pro 758,000
Sandor Demjan Hungary 379,000
Andrew Lichtenberger USA 373,000
On the second hand of play the short stack of Andrew Lichtenberger was won by Negreanu, who held pocket kings against the A-10 of Lichtenberger. He was eliminated in seventh place and left empty handed. That put the field on a $200,000 money bubble and although cautious play set in it didn’t take to long to settle the matter of who would be the last player to walk away empty handed.
The player that earned that distinction was Sandor Demjan in sixth place. This time it was Katchalov who dropped the hammer with pocket jacks in the hole against Demjan’s pocket tens. Team PokerStars pro Humberto Brenes was the next player to fall in fifth place. His A-Q fell against the pocket nines of Bryn Kenney and “The Shark” added $200,000 to his lifetime earnings, which are now worth $5,820,731.
Nick Schulman completely reversed his role as the chip leader at the start of the day when he fell in fourth place, which was good for $400,000. He moved all in on a J
10 3
7 3 board with K 9 after aggressively betting throughout the hand, and Negreanu made a good call to pick off his bluff with A
Q. Kenney fell less than an hour later in third place. His pocket eights were all in preflop against the pocket queens of Katchalov and they failed to catch up. Kenney was awarded $643,000 in prize money.
A short time into the heads-up final Katchalov took a huge lead when he grabbed a pot worth 6.3 million thanks to two pair, kings and sixes. That pot gave him a 2-1 advantage over his adversary. Negreanu then watched his stack dwindle to under a million before he was able to double up when his A-K had the A-5 of Katchalov dominated preflop. Negreanu still had his work cut out for him heading into the dinner break with 1.9 million against the 7.6 million of Katchalov.
It took an hour after dinner for Katchalov to finish the job. On the final hand Negreanu raised to 160,000 preflop and Katchalov reraised all in. Negreanu made the call after some agonizing and he revealed pocket fives. Katchalov was behind with pocket fours, but the board ran out A 10 8 4 2.
Katchalov won the hand and the tournament along with the $1.5 million first-place prize. That took his lifetime earnings up to $6,452,384, an impressive amount for a young player, but he has a lot more cashes to compile if he hopes to challenge the lifetime earnings of the player he defeated in the heads-up final. Negreanu was awarded $1 million as the runner up and he is now on top of the all-time earnings list with $13,995,908.
Final-Table Results:
1: Eugene Katchalov — $1,500,000
2: Daniel Negreanu — $1,000,000
3: Bryn Kenney — $643,000
4: Nick Schulman — $400,000
5: Humberto Brenes — $200,000
6: Sandor Demjan
7: Andrew Lichtenberger
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