Dimitar Danchev Wins $1,859,000 at 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure

EPT Sanremo runner-up Dimitar Danchev has become the first Bulgarian to win a major poker tournament after taking down the 2013 PCA Main Event for $1,859,000.

The 26-year-old, who was already top of the Bulgarian all-time money list, won his seat to the $10,000 event in a $700 qualifier on PokerStars. He has been playing poker professionally for around three years but first came to prominence when he was runner-up at the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour Sanremo tournament in 2011, where he earned €600,000.

Danchev won the title today when his AQ beat the A4 of Joel Micka, an American player who had previously finished runner-up at LAPT San Jose. As well as his cash prize, Danchev also receives a ‘Black and Steel’ design watch worth €5,250 from Slyde, the Official Watch Sponsor for PCA10. Micka took $1,190,000 for his second place finish.

This year’s PCA festival – billed “the best 10 days of poker on the planet”– has already produced four instant millionaires. As well Danchev and Micka’s huge prizes, Scott Seiver won the $100,000 Super High Roller for $2,003,480 with runner-up David Sands taking $1,259,320. Still to come is the $1,424,420 prize that will be awarded to the winner of the $25,000 High Roller event, which ends tomorrow (Monday 14 January).

This year’s PCA main event field of 987 players included 428 players who won their seats online with PokerStars. Among them was Joao Nogueira, a 21-year-old air conditioning engineer from a tiny town in northern Portugal, who won his seat via a $1.10 satellite. Nogueira had only been playing poker eight months and this was his first live tournament – but he still managed to make the final table, finishing eighth for $165,900.

Andrey Shatilov, a Supernova Elite player from Russia, bought in to the PCA using his Frequent Player Points – 750,000 of them – and finished sixth for $325,000.

There were 144 players in this year’s $10,000 main event to make the money, sharing a prize pool of $9,573,900.

Another notable cashes included APPT champion Eddy Sabat (17th), EPT Olivier Busquet (19th), Mohsin Charania (20th) and Guillaume Rivet (21st) – all for $56,000. Eugene Katchalov fared the best out of the Team PokerStars Pros, finishing 29th for $47,000. The newest Team member, Jake Cody, finished 47th for $32,000 and Tatiana Barausova, who has just joined Team Online, finished 46th for $32,000. George Danzer and Team PokerStars SportStar Fatima Moreira de Melo both min-cashed the event for $15,000.

Olympic swimming legend Michael Phelps, Seinfeld star Jason Alexander and golf champion Sergio Garcia all competed in the Main Event but failed to make the money.

This year’s PCA has featured 40 events and attracted thousands of poker players from all over the world. The festival continues tomorrow (Monday, January 14) with the televised final of the $25k High Roller as well as Day 2 of the $5k NL event and a $10k NL Turbo event.

Scroll Down to See the Winners…

1 Dimitar Danchev Bulgaria PokerStars qualifier $1,859,000 


2 Joel Micka USA $1,190,000 


3 Jerry Wong USA PokerStars player $725,000 


4 Jonathan Roy Canada PokerStars player $560,000 


5 Owen Crowe Canada PokerStars player $435,000 


6 Andrey Shatilov Russia PokerStars player $325,000 


7 Yann Dion Canada PokerStars qualifier $230,000 


8 Joao Nogueira Portugal PokerStars qualifier $165,900

- Source:  www.pokerstars.com