From Poker News

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is no more.

After 16 years, most of it spent being one of the premier live stops on the international poker scene, PokerStars has opted to discontinue the event,according to reporting from PocketFives.

The relevant sentence comes at the bottom of the linked piece, in a quote from PokerStars Marketing Director Eric Hollreiser.

“It’s no secret that after 15 successful years, the PCA [prior to last year’s PSPC] has been losing momentum and there’s been increasing player criticism of the location,” Hollreiser said. “As such, we will not be returning to Paradise Island in 2020.”

History of the PCA

PCA began as a partnership with the World Poker Tour, taking place on a cruise ship in 2004 and hosting a field of 221 players. Poker legend Gus Hansen would ship the inaugural event, then a $7,500 buy-in, for $455,780.

The next year the PCA moved to its famous home at Atlantis Resort, the sprawling and opulent set-up that occupies almost half of Paradise Island.

Over the years there, the series would eventually evolve into becoming part of PokerStars’ European Poker Tour, with the buy-in goosed up to $10,300. It would eventually stand as one of just a few remaining $10K main events on the overall live schedule, although the buy-in was dropped to $5,300 for a couple of years, including the one year the event was rebranded as PokerStars Championship Bahamas in 2017.

The PCA peaked in terms of prizes awarded in 2009, when little-known Canadian Poorya Nazariwon a monstrous official first-place of $3 million, although it was widely reported that a deal had been struck at some point before the finish. In terms of entries, the PCA Main Event peaked during the two following years when 1,529 and 1,560 turned up, respectively.

The Main Event was far from the only big draw at PCA. It also hosted some of the first and biggest $100K events in poker before that was just another tournament in the procession of high rollers. The $25K High Roller was also usually one of the most well-attended on the calendar.

Declining Attendance

While the PCA for years could count itself a premier live poker stop, it had fallen on somewhat hard times in recent years.

After attendance peaked in 2011, the lack of online satellites available to North American players contributed to a large attendance drop back to 1,072 in 2012 — about two-thirds of the previous year’s total. As the poker environment became tougher and edges shrank, the attractiveness of an expensive stay on an island resort went down as well.

A further drop of about 20 percent — from 1,031 to 816 — in 2015 convinced PokerStars brass to try lowering the buy-in to the aforementioned $5,300. The move did little, as a bump of about 100 entries just meant the prize pool dropped massively, awarding its first winner’s prize below seven figures since 2005.

Things only got worse the following year, and 2018’s return to $10,300 saw attendance drop in the number of entries to 582, a level not seen since 2005 as well.

The PCA received a major shot in the arm in 2019 when the PokerStars Players No-Limit Hold’em Championship was announced. While the landmark event would run alongside the PCA Main Event, the lure of the most lucrative $25K in history was enough to bring out plenty of grinders and push Main Event attendance back up to 865 for Chino Rheem’s victory.

However, that always looked to be temporary fix given that the PSPC was thought to be a one-off and certainly looked unlikely to be repeated every year. With the news that the event will move to Barcelona for 2020, it was confirmed that there would be no similar life raft to keep the 2020 PCA afloat, and PokerStars opted to end the long-running event rather than risk continued decline.

Barring a reboot some time down the road, that means Rheem will go down as the final PCA Main Event champion, closing the books on one of poker’s longest-running and most lucrative tournament series.

Tables of PCA Major Event Winners

Main Event

Year	Buy-In	Entries	Total Prize Pool	Winner	First Prize
2004	$7,500	221	$1,657,500	Gus Hansen	$455,780
2005	$8,000	461	$3,487,200	John Gale	$890,600
2006	$8,000	724	$5,647,200	Steve Paul-Ambrose	$1,388,600
2007	$8,000	937	$7,063,842	Ryan Daut	$1,535,255
2008	$8,000	1,136	$8,562,976	Bertrand Grospellier	$2,000,000
2009	$10,000	1,347	$12,674,000	Poorya Nazari	$3,000,000
2010	$10,300	1,529	$14,831,300	Harrison Gimbel	$2,200,000
2011	$10,300	1,560	$15,132,000	Galen Hall	$2,300,000
2012	$10,300	1,072	$10,398,400	John Dibella	$1,775,000
2013	$10,300	987	$9,573,900	Dimitar Danchev	$1,859,000
2014	$10,300	1,031	$10,070,000	Dominik Panka	$1,423,096
2015	$10,300	816	$7,915,200	Kevin Schulz	$1,491,580
2016	$5,300	928	$4,500,800	Mike Watson	$728,325
2017	$5,000	738	$3,376,712	Christian Harder	$429,664
2018	$10,300	582	$5,645,400	Maria Lampropulos	$1,081,100
2019	$10,300	865	$8,390,500	Chino Rheem	$1,567,100

$100K Super High Roller

Year	Entries	Total Prize Pool	Winner	Prize
2011	38	$3,743,000	Eugene Katchalov	$1,500,000
2012	32	$3,136,000	Viktor Blom	$1,254,400
2013	55	$5,724,180	Scott Seiver	$2,003,480
2014	56	$5,433,120	Fabian Quoss	$1,629,940
2015	66	$6,402,000	Steve O’Dwyer	$1,872,580
2016	58	$5,626,000	Bryn Kenney	$1,687,800
2017	54	$5,239,080	Jason Koon	$1,650,300
2018	48	$4,737,600	Cary Katz	$1,492,340
2019	61	$5,918,220	Sam Greenwood	$1,775,460

$25K High Roller

Year	Entries	Total Prize Pool	Winner	Prize
2009	48	$1,200,000	Bertrand Grospellier	$433,500
2010	84	$2,057,998	William Reynolds	$576,240
2011	151	$3,775,500	Will Molson	$1,072,850
2012	148	$3,626,000	Alex Bilokur	$1,134,930
2013	204	$4,998,000	Vanessa Selbst	$1,424,420
2014	247	$6,051,500	Jake Schindler	$1,192,624
2015	269	$6,456,000	Ilkin Garibli	$1,105,040
2016	225	$5,400,000	Nick Maimone	$996,480
2017	159	$3,895,500	Luc Greenwood	$740,032
2018	142	$3,484,800	Chris Kruk	$836,350
2019	162	$3,928,500	Martin Zamani	$895,110

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