January 07 2012, Donnie Peters

The first day of the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event is in the books. The day wasn’t too long, lasting just nine levels and ending before midnight in The Bahamas. It was an exciting one, though. For one, the field grew to 418 players on Day 1a. That’s a very good number considering all that has been affected from Black Friday and put the hopes of hitting around 1,200 extremely likely. Second, we saw the emergence of a big chip leader by the name of Alexey Repik.

Repik climbed all the way from the starting stack of 30,000 in chips to finish on 220,100. He played fairly aggressively for most of the day and used a rather unorthodox style as to what most players are doing these days. Instead of smaller raises preflop or smaller bet sizes compared to the pot, Repik was often raising well over three times the big blind and betting near full pot, if not a little more, during the day. Whatever he did worked though and he’ll be a very tough man to catch for the Day 1b competitors.

Along with Repik, some of the other players who bagged up bunches included Richard Bruning with 193,100, Salvatore Bianco with 192,400, Faraz Jaka with 129,500 and Adam Levy with 115,000.

Levy got himself off to a great start. He worked his way up near 60,000 early on, but then ran pocket kings into pocket aces and was crushed all the way back to 11,000. Despite the misfortune Levy fought back and was able to find a few doubles to get himself back in the game. The double that gave him a six-figure stack came in the last level of the night when Levy was all in preflop for 56,000 with the against the of Jamie Rosen. An ace on the turn gave Levy what he needed to win the hand and sent his stack soaring.

Also building some nice towers on the first day were Team PokerStars Pros Victor Ramdin, Christian De Leon, Jude Ainsworth and Pat Pezzin. Fellow Team Pros Angel Guillen and Leo Fernandez have also advanced to Day 2.

Some of the notables who were eliminated on the day included Tristan Wade, Mohsin Charania, Brandon Cantu, Chris Moorman and Shaun Deeb. Team PokerStars players to fall included Johnny Lodden, Chris Moneymaker and Chad Brown. At the end of play, the board read that just over 200 players remained.

Day 1b kicks off at 1200 EST (1700 GMT) on Sunday and the field will be much, much larger. Some of the pros slated to play include last year’s champion Galen Hall, Team PokerStars Pros Jason Mercier, Vanessa Selbst and Daniel Negreanu, Dan Shak, Matt Waxman, Eugene Katchalov and Jen Harman. PokerNews will be here to provide all the updates from the floor and you should be, too.

Following us on Twitter is the best way to keep up with the rest of the news from the tournament circuit and beyond.[/I]

Follow Donnie Peters on Twitter – @Donnie_Peters

October 17 2011, Eric Ramsey

Monday was Day 2 of the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event, where the survivors from both Day 1 flights combined. The remaining 328 filed back into the Hotel Barriere at high noon for six levels of action. When the bags came out again around midnight, Constant Rijkenberg found himself in the chip lead with 462,800.

If Monday’s action was any indication, though, Rijkenberg will have to guard those chips with his life. Jamie Rosen failed to do that, and despite coming in with the biggest stack, he was sent home early after having all 162,700 of his chips bled off. Also falling rather quickly was Tommy Vedes who began Day 2 in third place overall. It was Vedes’ birthday on Monday, but it turned out to be a relatively unhappy one. In the first level or so, he had his stack cut by about 75 percent, and he soon disappeared entirely, hopefully to have a relaxing and celebratory night out in Cannes. There are worse places to celebrate your birthday.

The fall of the big stacks made way for some fresh faces at the top of the chip counts. It was Rifat Palevic who first established himself as the dominant force, rising through a very tough table that included Jake Cody, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, 2011 November Niner Sam Holden, and the one and only Johnny Chan. Beginning the day with a healthy stack of around 100,000, Palevic went to work early, out-aggressing the rest of the table and building a stack of more than a half-million chips before dinner. Vadim Ifergan snapped him off in a big pot on the last hand before the break, though, and a few after-dinner encounters with Hoyt Corkins saw Palevic slide to 353,500 at night’s end. That’s still good enough to put him among the leaders.

Others who had a productive Day 2 included Victor Ramdin (156,900), Chris Moorman (167,800), last year’s 13th-place finisher Hoyt Corkins (429,900), and, of course, Erik Seidel (297,900). A bit further down the list, but still alive are the likes of Patrik Antonius, Robert Mizrachi, Freddy Deeb, John Duthie, and Tony G. There’s a lot riding on Day 3 for everyone, but particularly for Tony G. He’s booked “20,000 of action at 5:1 that he’ll cash, adding six-figures of equity to a mini-cash.

Deserving of special mention is Jake Cody. Already a bracelet winner from this past summer – and one of only a handful of men to win the Triple Crown – Cody went on a tear in the two levels after dinner to stuff 323,200 chips into his bag at night’s end. He’s been putting on quite a show over the past two years, and a deep run in this event would only further his reputation as one of the most dangerous players in the game.

Also not to be forgotten are the three women who’ve made it this far, as well. Melanie Weisner had a slow, grinding day with a short stack, but she managed to rebound close to average with 118,600 chips to close the day. Britain’s most charming export, Liv Boeree is doing a bit better with 202,300, and France’s Rebecca Selvin bagged up 108,100 with which to try and mount a run Tuesday.

Casualties? There were plenty of those. At the end of the night, the big board shows that less than 110 players survived to bag up chips. Leo Margets departed early, followed by Antonin Teisseire, Peter Jetten, Scotty Nguyen, Johnny Chan, Bruno Fitoussi, and the Devilfish, David Ulliott.

About 115 players will return on Tuesday to play down into the money. The remainder of the tournament is being dealt eight-handed, and the weeding-out process will continue as the field shrinks to the final three tables. Play is set to resume at 1200 CET (0300 PDT).

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Follow Eric Ramsey on Twitter – @Eric_Ramsey