Looking Back at the Biggest PokerStars Winners in the Bahamas

The inaugural PokerStars Championship Bahamas takes place Jan. 6-14 on Atlantis Paradise Island. While the PokerStars Championship Bahamas is new, its predecessor, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure or simply the PCA, has been around for some time.

PCA Main Event Winners

Back in 2004, the PCA was a World Poker Tour event which took place aboard the Royal Caribbean Voyager of the Seas cruise ship. Gus “The Great Dane” Hansen won the first PCA Main Event ever, topping a field of 221 entrants in the $7,500 Main Event to get his hands on $455,780.

Since 2005, the PCA took place at the Atlantis Paradise Island and it was John Gale who was triumphant on the island first, beating 460 other players in the $8,000 Main Event to win $890,600, which is still his largest live tournament score to date.

The first PCA Main Event to award a six-figure prize came 12 months later when Steve Paul-Ambrose outlasted 723 opponents to scoop $1,388,600 before Ryan Daut won a famous heads-up battle with Isaac Haxton in 2007 to win $1,535,255.

Daut’s victory was the final PCA flying under the World Poker Tour banner because, from 2008 on, the PCA became part of the European Poker Tour. Quite fittingly, the first EPT edition of the PCA was won by a European, Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, who became the first player to secure a payout of at least $2 million from the PCA Main Event.

The largest first place prize was awarded in 2009 when a massive field of 1,347 …

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