2014 PCA: Panka Wins, Prevents McDonald From Making History

The first major of the poker is over as Dominik Panka played the role of spoiler as Mike McDonald was chasing history at the PCA…

PANKA MAKES DEAL, WINS TITLE

Following in the footsteps of fellow Polish player Marcin Wydrowski, who only had a few cashes to his credit before taking down WPT Prague in December 2013, Dominik Panka (GPI#7872) becomes the latest player from Poland to win big, winning the first major Main Event of the season at the PokerStars Carribean Adventure.

The day began with Argentina’s Fabian Ortiz bowing out after hours of play. It would also take a while to lose our next player, 2010 WSOP bracelet winner and 2012 WPT Montreal runner-up Pascal Lefrançois. Fellow Canadian Shyam Srinivasan would be next to go followed by Guatamala’s Daniel Gamez.

Estonian Madis Muur, who came into final table play as the chip leader, would bow out in fourth position. A deal was consummated once we got to three-handed play as Panka, Mike McDonald and Isaac Baron would play down to a winner. Sixteen hours after final table play had started, Panka was raising the trophy, defeating stars McDonald and Baron to win the title.

DREAMS CRUSHED FOR MCDONALD

The big news item coming into the final table was would Mike McDonald (GPI#26) become the first-ever two-time winner on the European Poker Tour. Amazingly, a player has NEVER won twice on the EPT. On Monday, McDonald, who won EPT Dortmund  in 2008, was the next player in line to attempt to win #2. Unfortunately for the young phenom, he would have to settle for second.

Still, McDonald collects the second seven-figure score of his career on the live tournament circuit, the biggest since his first EPT title, and moves his live tournament career earnings to just under 7M USD.

SCHINDLER WINS HIGH ROLLER

The 25K High Roller event was also completed on Monday when Jacob Schindler (GPI#112) would get the best of 2012 WSOP Main Event Champion Greg Merson heads-up to take home the 1.19M USD top prize.

Vanessa Selbst (GPI#5), who finished third in the 100K Super High Roller event earlier in the series, would fall a little short in her attempt to win this tournament in back-to-back seasons finishing third in this event – still, an amazing performance by the American pro.

The EPT will reconvene in Deauville, France at the end of the month. The 13th edition of the GPI European Poker Awards, presented in part by PokerStars, will be presented on January 29th!

PokerStars Caribbean Poker Adventure (EPT) Main Event
Atlantis Resort  |  Paradise Island, BAH
$10,300 Buy-In  |  1,031 Entries  |  $10,070,000 USD Prize Pool

[table id=758 /]

* Cover photo courtesy of PokerStars/European Poker Tour/Neil Stoddart

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