Saturday - PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Day 1b

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure has practically taken over the small city of the Atlantis Resort, with three hotel room towers filled to capacity, as over 900 entrants and their families, along with tournament staff and media crews gather from around the world.

At 1 a.m. on Sunday, hours away from day 2 of the PCA, there were a number of familiar young faces seen lounging in various tower lobbies of the massive three-winged hotel. The waiting areas took on the look and feel of posh living rooms, as several young men, with legs crossed and feet propped, sat comfortably along large sofas or around several cocktail tables. Each of them was either staring intently at his own laptop monitor or following the action from someone else's. The young competitors and their spectators bonded through one common denominator – online poker.



With the rebirth of an old pastime, modernized by the Internet, a favorite challenge for today's young players is to compete at multiple tables while logged on to various online poker rooms. Displaying up to six running tables on a single screen, laptops are a poker player's necessity. This young generation of online "gamers" challenges itself to play fast, hard, well, and play everywhere. It's also become the perfect spectator sport, as the early morning railbirds wandered by various Atlantis lobbies to quietly watch, though others couldn't resist coaching from the sidelines.



Here in the Bahamas, where other young groups are lured into nightclubs, seen loitering in the streets, or participating in ransacking beaches in "spring break-like" fashion, young poker enthusiasts act more like members of an exclusive chess club. And while the Paris Hiltons and Federlines continue to influence our youth, this new generation of online poker players sip their energy drinks, compare strategies, calculate odds, and exchange inevitable bad beat stories long into the night.



It's no mystery that poker players are younger than ever. In fact, Card Player is producing a video clip focusing on PCA participants under the age of 21 (coming soon). Of nearly 1,000 entrants, close to 20 percent of the total field isn't allowed to play in casinos. And yet, with the introduction of free poker and Frequent Player Points, a young online player can use FFPs to buy his way into major events or qualify through a number of freeroll tournaments. And that's exactly what they do. Which brings them to places like Nassau. And though many didn't make it past day 1 of the PCA, they'll remain at the Atlantis and root for their comrades – the ones they chatted with in online poker rooms or forums, and eventually met along the way during their travels.



Critics should put their minds to rest about young online "gamers" and rethink the age-old question: "Where are our sons and daughters tonight?"



Day 1b of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Championship Event



Though we weren't able to get an exact count of the number of entries in day 1b of the PCA, rumor had it that the event was at capacity, and several alternate names were waiting to be called. And there were some interesting seat assignments, with Michael Mizrachi, JC Tran, Barry Greenstein, and Nam Le at one table, and David Williams, Tom McEvoy, Cliff Josephy, and Isabelle Mercier at another.



Daniel Negreanu was his usual entertaining self, and railbirds crowded near his table, hoping he'd remove his cap to reveal a newly shaven head. (For some great entertainment, tune into Negreanu's latest video blog.)



Jennifer Tilly went out early when she pushed her short stack all in on a flush draw. Unfortunately for her, she didn't complete her hand as an opponent with pocket kings sent her on an early vacation in paradise. But she'd have to wait for Phil Laak who was still huddled in "Unabomber" fashion at another table.



Mark "P0kerH0" Kroon was unusually quiet, building his stack early to around $62,000 by the second level. But an hour later, Kroon took a hit when he called an opponent who had a pair of sixes, while Kroon turned over pocket nines. His stack was leveled as the inferior hand drew into a straight by the fourth card on the board, and made a straight flush on the river. Kroon went into the next hand crippled.

Cliff "Johnny Bax" Josephy scored big through Joseph Hachem and another opponent when, during three-way action, he pushed his last $8,000 into the pot. The third player folded, but Hachem called with pocket sixes. Josephy had jacks in the hole, and both players missed the board, giving Josephy the pot.

Meanwhile, the boisterous Humberto Brenes's table was breaking, and he drew a seat at the Josephy, Mercier, Williams, and McEvoy table. Even more interesting was the fact that they were all positioned next to each other.



Notable players who didn't make day 2's cut were Hachem, Kroon, Devon Porter, Josephy, Mercier, Brenes, Amanda “Mandy B” Baker, and Allyn Jaffrey Shulman.

With the completion of level six, play will continue on Sunday at noon, when approximately 500 players will return for the second official day of action.

Here were the approximate chip counts of the top 10 finishers at the end of Flight 2 (as reported by Card Player at 9 p.m., Saturday)



Christopher Lee: $150,000

Isaac Baron: $147,800

Paul Lui: $111,000

Barry Shulman: $108,000

Tom McEvoy: $86,500

Mark Seif: $80,500

David Williams: $78,000

Shannon Shorr: $70,000

Nenad Medic: $67,000

Daniel Negreanu: $63,000

Here are the official chip counts (as reported by PokerStars, 4 a.m., Sunday) of the top 10 combined players from Flights 1 and 2 heading into day 2.



Owen Crowe: $202,000

Christopher Lee: $174,000

Isaac Baron: $147,800

Mark Bryan: $138,400

Isaac Haxton: $126,800

Jimmy Fricke: $122,500

Michael Kats: $122,200

Paul Lui: $122,500

Thierry Passeron: $122,400

Kristian Ulriksen: $112,400



Stay tuned to CardPlayer.com for complete multimedia coverage of the 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure from the Atlantis Hotel Resort Casino, with live updates (including chip counts), photos of players and activities, video clips and interviews, along with nightly audio streams of The Circuit.



Today's Tidbit


Poker pro Robert Williamson III once passed some advice along to his little sister when she was just a teenager. She was out long past her curfew and knew her protective parents would be furious. As she entered the house where they impatiently waited, the older brother pulled her aside and asked, "Do you have an alibi?"

"No," she said.

"Then tell them you were stuck in an all-night poker game," he advised her.



His sister, desperate to calm her parent's frayed nerves, took her brother's advice. And though her mother was satisfied and relieved by the explanation, the elder Mr. Williamson had a few choice words, including a stern tutoring on how to properly play poker.

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