John Dibella Wins the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event

John Dibella is a stock trader by day, but he also loves playing live poker. Dibella played in the 2008 PCA Main Event and finished in 60^th place, which was his best cash in his poker career. The amateur poker player has now added $1.75M to his bankroll after taking down 1^st place in the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure this week. Several amateur poker players made the final table and for the first time in history, a woman made the final table in the PCA Main Event.

This year a total of 1072 poker players competed in the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Dibella would have won more, but once the action went heads-up Dibella and Kyle Julius made a deal. The two players decided to both split the pot in half and leave $250K in the prize pool for the eventual winner. Both players won $1.5M and Dibella won the remaining $250K in the prize pool after he defeated Julius in the heads-up battle.

At the time of the deal Dibella had a pretty big chip lead and I’m a bit surprised he chopped the prize pool in half. One big hand could have changed his fortunes, but I’m sure most players wouldn’t have made that deal in his position. Dibella was definitely an underdog to win the main event at the start of the final table, but he played excellent poker on the final table. Dibella also had some luck, as is the case with many players that win a huge MTT.

Dibella started the final table with a short stack, but he managed to slowly build it up early during the final table. Dibella needed a lot of luck in one all-in hand and he ended up hitting a 2 outer. Dibella was all-in against Faraz Jaka with 4’s while Jaka had Jack’s. Somehow Dibella hit a 4 and Jaka was unable to improve his hand, which crippled Jaka’s chip stack. I often say that it takes a bit of luck to win any main event and that was the case for this amateur poker player at the 2012 PCA Main Event.

Xuan Liu was the 1^st woman to make the final table in a PCA main event. Liu was able to finish in 4^th place this year and I’m sure we’ll see her back on the felt next year for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. For those of you that missed out on the 2012 PCA, make sure you try qualifying for the event next year. Dibella qualified for the main event through a $1K satellite in the Bahamas, but there are always lots of online satellites that poker players can play in leading up to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure every year.

2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Results

1. John Dibella $1,775,000
2. Kyle Julius $1,500,000
3. Faraz Jaka $755,000
4. Xuan Liu $600,000
5. Mark Drover $468,000
6. Anthony Gregg $364,000
7. David Bernstein $260,000
8. Ruben Visser $156,400