Poorya Nazari Wins PokerStars EPT

The 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event had drawn a record setting 1,347 players and was held once again at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Out of the 1,347 entrants, 746 of them qualified via PokerStars satellite tournament. The remaining players bought in directly for a whopping $10,000, which created a prize pool of $12.5 million.

The $3 million first place prize went to Canadian poker player Poorya Nazari who spent $700 in a $33 triple re-buy qualifier, which turned out to be an excellent investment including a trip to the Bahamas and returning to Canada with $3 million USD in his pocket, which is roughly $3.65 million in Canadian dollars.

Nazari is a 22 year old biochemistry, who has just graduated last month, admitted he was stunned by the win. He said, “It was only today that I started thinking about winning. At one point yesterday I was down to virtually nothing, but I got off to a good start today and at that point I thought I might have a shot.”

The final table was completely stacked with 2008 WSOP bracelet winner Alexandre Gomes entering the day with a massive chip lead, however, he went down in fourth place and Poorya Nazari and Tony Gregg met heads up for the championship. Heads up play only took four hands for Nazari to be crowned champ. The last hand came when Nazari held Ac-10d to Gregg’s Qd-7s and both players got all their chips in preflop and the board ran 10s-6c-5c-3s-9d. Nazari’s pair of 10’s beat Gregg’s queen high making him the 2009 Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure EPT Champion.

Final table results:

1. Poorya Nazari – $3,000,000
2. Tony Gregg – $1,700,000
3. Benny Spindler – $1,100,000
4. Alexandre Gomes – $750,000
5. Pieter Tielen -$550,000
6. Dustin Dirksen – $400,000
7. Daniel Heimiller – $300,000
8. Kevin Saul – $234,000

Each year PokerStars runs the Caribbean Adventure, which is an official European Poker Tour (EPT) event. The tournament also runs a $25k buy-in High Roller Event along with several other large buy-in tournaments with excellent turn outs. Last year the main event had 1,136 entrants, and it is good to see that poker is still growing since the 2009 main event had 1,347 entrants.

This event had nearly all the Team Pokerstar players attending that included Daniel Negreanu, Vicky Coren, Marcin Horecki, Tom McEvoy, Ylon Schwartz, Kathy Liebert, Chris Moneymaker, Joe Hachem, Barry Greenstien and many more. Other PokerStars sponsored players who showed up were, Peter Eastgate, Hevad Khan, Ivan Demidov, Darius Shuarto, Dennis Philips, Johnny Lodden, Orel Hersiser, and Gualter Salles. The tournament is also filled with online professionals and many pros that tour the EPT circuit.

The executive producer of the EPT, John Duthie, said: “The PCA is the first major poker event on the hectic 2009 poker calendar and the recent worldwide financial crisis did nothing to deter more than 1,300 people entering the $10,000 buy-in main event that smashed all records for a poker tournament outside of the States.”