PokerStars Caribbean Adventure

After defeating a field of 1,560 players, Galen Hall was crowned champion of this year’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure and walked away with the first prize of $2.3 million.

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure 2011 Main Event was won by Galen Hall after he managed to defeat a field of 1,560 players over the course of six days to collect the $2.3 million prize.
This is not Hall’s first success, over the last few years he has managed to win $878,897 at PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker. However, this is his first real success in a live tournament, since until now he’s had only two cashes worth $6,355. Nonetheless, his success has put his name firmly on the live tournament circuit.
Day 1a and 1b saw the field reduced to 645 players, a further 472 were knocked out on Day 2, by Day 4 there were only 48 players left and then just 22 on Day 5 who fought for their places at the final table of 8.
At the beginning of the final table Chris ‘Getting Daize’ Oliver was in front with a chip stack of 19.67m, in second was Galen ‘HasparLeMarc’ Hall with 6.43m. The rest of the table consisted of Sam ‘KingKobeMVP’ Stein with %.855m, Mike ‘SowersUNCC’ Sowers with 3.685m, Anton Ionel with 3.52m, Max ‘$Kill Game’ Weinberg with 3.35m, Bolivar ‘Ramux’ Palacios with 2.445m and Philippe Plouffe with 1.555m.
When there were five players left Chris Oliver took control and Galen Hall persisted with his patient waiting game whilst holding the second largest stack. In the end the two of them went heads-up with Oliver having a 3 – 1 chip advantage over Hall. Things began to change when Hall made an impressive lay down whilst holding a straight on the river to Oliver’s full house and Hall began to reduce Oliver’s lead.
After three hours Hall took the chip lead after Oliver moved all-in pre-flop holding A-9 against Hall’s K-K. A few hands later Oliver was holding a strong pocket pair of Q-Q whilst Hall had A-8. However, the A-K-8 flop didn’t help Oliver who then had to find satisfaction with the second place and $1.8 million.
Hall walked away the winner and $2.3 million richer; he said that he had been focusing 12 hours a day for the last week on playing the best poker he could. He described the final table as “long and grueling” followed by a tough heads-up match, yet said he has walked away feeling “pretty awesome”.