In 2005, the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure moved to a new venue. Held the previous year on the Royal Caribbean Cruise Line’s Voyager of the Seas, the PCA packed up and moved to the Atlantis Resort and Casino on Paradise Island in The Bahamas. It was the second installment of the poker tournament, which primarily features online poker players who have qualified through PokerStars. 461 players coughed up $7,800 (plus $200 to the house), resulting in a prize pool of nearly $3.5 million. At the end of the day, Englishman John Gale took home over $850,000 and a $25,000 seat into the 2005 WPT Championship at the end of the season. Gale would go on to place second in Event #20, a Pot Limit Omaha tournament, in the 2005 WSOP and win his first bracelet a year later, in 2006. He’s cashed in multiple live tournaments since his 2005 PCA cash, including European Poker Tour, WSOP, and WPT events.
Newcomer Alex Balandin finished second, taking home $484,000. Balandin was relatively unknown at the time, but stormed onto the WSOP scene in 2005 shortly after the PCA, capturing a fifth place finish in Event #37 of the WSOP, a $1,000 buy-in No Limit tournament, winning $141,000. Swedish-born Michael Westerlund took third and cashed for $306,400. American Patrick Hocking finished fourth, pocketing $207,700. Not bad for his first major cash. Taking fifth at the final table was poker veteran Miami John Cernuto, who won his first WSOP bracelet in 1996 and would gain two more in 1997 and 2002. Cernuto had his first WSOP cash in 1989 and had seven cashes in the 2006 World Series.
Rounding out the final table was Nenad Medic, a Canadian who has made a name for himself in international poker events. Medic finished third in the 2006 Crown Australian Poker Championship, winning $285,664. He also won $1.7 million in the Foxwoods World Poker Finals on Season Five of the WPT. He’d follow it up one year later by finishing third in the same Foxwoods event, displaying remarkable consistency.
Other high-profile poker players to cash in the 2005 PCA included two-time WSOP bracelet winner Steve Zolotow, who finished ninth. Zolotow made final tables in the 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1989 World Series before capturing his first bracelet (in Chinese Poker, no less) in 1995.
Alex Brenes finished 11th. He had been cashing in WSOP events for over a decade prior to the 2005 PCA. He was the runner up in a $3,500 No Limit event in the 1999 WSOP and won the WPT Season Three Invitational tournament, defeating Johan Storakers, Chris Ferguson, Chau Giang, and Bruce Buffer in the process. Allen Cunningham finished 16th. The poker pro had captured just one WSOP bracelet at the time and cashed in his first WSOP event in 1998. He’d win nearly three quarters of a million dollars a few months later by winning his second bracelet in Event #2 of the 2005 WSOP.
Though playing the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure on a cruise ship was novel, the change to the Atlantis Hotel was welcome. The following year, the tournament would nearly double in size to over 750 entrants. The result: another highly-touted PCA.