The 2020 Caribbean Poker Party kicked off this weekend and it has got off to a ferocious start. The $500,000 guaranteed Opener blitzed its guarantee and the $5 million guaranteed Main Event drew in a substantial crowd.
Some of the world’s best poker players logged into their partypoker accounts for the Main Event and Michael Addamo outshone them all. Without further ado, let’s recap the action from the 2020 CPP.
Caribbean Poker Party Main Event Day 1A Top 10 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Michael Addamo | United Kingdom | 18,658,743 |
| 2 | Pedro Padilha Chaves | Brazil | 17,110,419 |
| 3 | Manuel Ruivo | Netherlands | 16,674,394 |
| 4 | Julien Perouse | Canada | 14,546,236 |
| 5 | Marcelo Costa | Brazil | 13,282,423 |
| 6 | Matas Cimbolas | United Kingdom | 11,961,482 |
| 7 | Rok Gostisa | Slovenia | 11,794,610 |
| 8 | Georgios Manousos-Sotiropoulos | Cyprus | 11,693,436 |
| 9 | Bruno Volkmann | Brazil | 11,093,756 |
| 10 | Jonathan Van Fleet | Canada | 10,919,477 |
A field of 490 players bought into the $5,200 CPP Main Event on the first of it’s two starting flights, meaning $2,450,000 of the advertised $5 million guarantee has been collected.
Michael Addamo was the player who finished the flight with the chip lead, quite the enviable position to be in. Addamo is no stranger to major events and his record in them is nothing short of incredible. The extremely talented Australian finished Day 1A with a tournament-leading stack of 18,658,743 chips. There’s still a long way to go in this event but Addamo must now be one of the favourites to become its champion.
Brazilian Pedro Padilha Chaves enjoyed his time at the tables, as would you if you accumulated 17,110,419 chips. The South American has more than $1 million in live tournament earnings and is now a major force in this tournament.
Third-place in the overnight chip counts belongs to Manuel Ruivo. You may recall Ruivo won the 2018 MILLIONS Online for a massive $2,329,943 and is now in with a legitimate chance of becoming the 2020 CPP Main Event champion.
Another former MILLIONS Online champion, Jonathan Van Fleet, also excelled on Day 1A. Van Fleet won the inaugural MILLIONS Online in 2017 for $1,027,000. His Day 1A of this huge event saw him bag up 10,919,477 chips, enough for 10th place currently.
Matas Cimbolas bagged up more than 11 million chips
Several other stars finished with top 10 stacks. These include former WPT Prague champion Matas Cimbolas (11,961,482), high roller specialist Rok Gostisa (11,794,610), and Brazilian sensation Bruno Volkmann (11,093,756).
Also through to Day 2 at the first attempts are such luminaries as four-time WSOP bracelet winner Dominik Nitsche (9,900,100), Mike Watson (7,120,935), Thomas Muehloecker (6,501,576), Ole Schemion (6,062,560), Team partypoker’s Isaac Haxton (5,568,179), and reigning MILLIONS Online champion Benjamin Chalot (1,605,570).
Day 1B shuffles up and deal at 19:05 GMT on November 22 giving you plenty of time to win your $5,200 seat via our satellites and Mega Satellites.
Daniel McAulay Excels on Day 1A of the Mini Main Event
The CPP Mini Main Event got off to a flying start with 690 players buying in for $530. Only 109 of those starters punched their Day 2 tickets and nobody finished the night with more chips than Daniel McAulay.
McAulay ended his Day 1A battle with 19,942,197 chips. He is an incredible poker player who is usually found crushing cash games using the alias “dougiedan678”. You may remember McAulay was one of the professionals chosen to take on the high-tech poker bot Libratus in 2017. There are no bots at partypoker, just a heap of star gunning for glory.
Nuno Capucho bagged up 16,416,939 chips when the curtain came down on Day 1A. He’s closely followed by former professional football player Steve Watts (15,050,442).
New Zealand’s Sosia Jiang (12,709,382), a former Big Game winner, is the highest-placed female grinder across both the Main and Mini Main Events.
Jeff Gross is safely through to Day 2 of the Mini Main Event
Plenty of stellar names progressed to Day 2 at the first attempt. Henri Buehler (12,481,752), Steven Van Zadelhoff (12,401,773), Alexandru Papazian (9,636,471), Team Online’s Jeff Gross (8,512,147) and Matthew Staples (6,121,895), Stefan Jedlicka (5,189,422), Conor Beresford (3,005,294), and Joao Vieira (2,117,694) are just a handful of big names to look out for on Day 2.
Caribbean Poker Party Mini Main Event Day 1A Top 10 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daniel McAulay | United Kingdom | 19,942,197 |
| 2 | Nuno Capucho | Malta | 16,416,939 |
| 3 | Steve Watts | United Kingdom | 15,050,442 |
| 4 | Davide Marchi | Malta | 14,320,884 |
| 5 | Adrien Delmas | united Kingdom | 14,209,120 |
| 6 | Christopher Fitzgerald | Canada | 13,342,580 |
| 7 | Viktor Ustimov | Russia | 13,217,714 |
| 8 | Aram Zobian | Canada | 12,907,359 |
| 9 | Sosia Jiang | New Zealand | 12,709,382 |
| 10 | Henri Buehler | Austria | 12,481,752 |
Van Der Swaluw Takes Down The Opener For $105,251.64
Netherlands’ Alexander Van Der Swaluw overcame a star-studded field of 714 entrants in the $1,050 buy-in $500,000 guaranteed The Opener. Only 120 of those stars sat back down on Day 2 and 15 of those players left without securing a slice of the main prize pool.
Pim Gieles burst the money bubble and, unfortunately for him, didn’t manage to claim any bounties during his deep run.
Players such as Manig Loeser, Dimitar Danchev, Christian Rudolph, Pedro Marquez, Pablo Brito Silva, Sylvain Loosli, Michael Tureniec, and team partypoker’s Roberto Romanello all cashed, the latter finishing in 18th place for a combined $4,577.29.
Ema Zajmovic had to make do with a 6th place finish
Greece’s Emmanouil Fountoulakis was the first o the seven players at the final table to lose their stack. Seventh-place weighed in at a combined $12,051.43. We almost had a female champion but Ema Zajmovic crashed out in sixth, not before securing $19,315.02.
Andreas Berggren ($17,861.37) and Hungary’s Istvan Habencius ($33,099.68) were the next casualties, leaving only three players in the hunt for the title.
Three became two when Fabian Gumz bowed out. The Austrian banked $31,265.54 from the main prize pool and an additional $8,953.12 worth of bounties for a combined prize worth $40,218.66.
Heads-up pitted Van Der Swaluw and Darren Elias against each other. Elias, a four-time World Poker Tour champion, will have to wait for a CPP title because he lost the one-on-one battle. His reward for such a deep run was worth $56,494.03, giving him plenty of ammunition for the rest of the series.
Congratulations to Van Der Swaluw whose total prize weighed in at $105,251.64.
| Place | Player | Country | Prize | Bounties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alexander Van Der Swaluw | Netherlands | $49,269.16 | $55,982.48 |
| 2 | Darren Elias | Canada | $49,197.16 | $7,296.87 |
| 3 | Fabian Gumz | Austria | $31,265.54 | $8,953.12 |
| 4 | Istvan Habencius | Hungary | $21,464.91 | $11,634.77 |
| 5 | Andreas Berggren | Sweden | $14,834.03 | $3,027.34 |
| 6 | Ema Zajmovic | Canada | $10,768.15 | $8,546.87 |
| 7 | Emmanouil Fountoulakis | Greece | $8,121.74 | $3,929.69 |
CPP Events Taking Place on November 16
November 16 sees Day 1 of the $1,050 buy-in, $200,000 guaranteed The Knockout. This event shuffles up and deals at 19:05 GMT and there are a plethora of satellites feeding into it. These satellites run throughout the day, so you have plenty of chances of bagging yourself a $1,050 seat for a fraction of the cost.
You’ll also find satellites for the $25,500 Super High Roller event, which starts at 19:05 GMT on November 17. Check out the full CPP event and satellite schedules here.
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