The Caribbean Booty: Day 1b at the 2009 PCA

On a crystal-clear day here at Paradise Island, the poker world headed inside instead to warm up the Atlantis Conference Center and Day 1b of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, all the while proving poker and its stars are truly the hottest thing in the Bahamas.

A rather robust 676 of poker's best and brightest hit the felt today, barely inching over the 660 from yesterday, but still making the total field an EPT record 1,347.

As big as that sounds, the real proof is in the massive Caribbean booty these pirates are pining to pillage.

The total prize pool is over $12 million, with a $3 million first-place prize making this the largest chunk of EPT loot ever - outside of Glen Chorny's $3.1 million take from last year's Grand Final.

The Europeans meeting the North Americans somewhere closer to their turf and PokerStars running enough qualifiers to get the entire poker world here has churned out a 2009 PCA that is so huge, it sneaks into the bottom spot on the "Top 10 Tournaments of All Time" list.

Qualified!

It will make millionaires of the final three and pay 199, and even getting a sniff of the final table will get about 30 other players a decent score.

Chris Moneymaker just missed that list, but every WSOP Main Event since has taken spots near the top. The Team PokerStars pro was one of the masses taking a shot at Caribbean gold today. He had a stack before blowing it up late, but wasn't the only former Main Event champ to try and start a run for the Bahamian bounty on the felt today, and the others are still here.

Despite doing his best to be invisible most of the day, like he always does, Carlos Mortensen showed up with a rather sizable and neatly columned stack of clay after dinner, finishing the day near the top on a respectable $140k.

2008 Champ Peter Eastgate won more than his fair share of pots and will come back stacked for Day 2 tomorrow at 12 p.m. with the almost 200 players who lasted all eight levels of play today and the 182 survivors from Day 1a.

The champ goes down.

There are too many big names both in and out to list in this space, but we can tell you last year's PCA champ didn't make the cut. Team PokerStars Pro's Bertrand Grospellier fell out in the middle levels and will likely slide into the $25k high roller event starting tomorrow, unless the rest of the week on a Paradise Island beach sounds more appealing to ElkY. PokerListing.com's bonus coverage of all that will be found right here.

While all-world pros like Full Tilt's Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen and Robert Mizrachi joined all-time athletes Boris Becker and Orel Hershiser in being sent off the plank, a 25-year-old from Dubai named Chris Fernandez was on the other end of the sword, getting it up to $285k before the last level and letting $70k slip away.

Fernandez still grabbed the Day 1b chip lead and will come into Day 2 in the top five with almost $220k.

CardRunners master Eric Liu, 2008 WSOP and WPT final tablist Daniel Heimiller and WSOP bracelet holder Mark Seif will all come back with well over $100k, being chased by a fairly large group of solid players that could go on forever, also ready for a run at the island's riches.

Boom Boom's broke.

Just like on most WPT stops these days, we can say that list includes tough North American talents like Nenad Medic, Jon Friedberg and Kevin Saul. Plus, a ton of those Stateside kids smoking people all over the place online and traveling around the planet stealing the live donks' blinds also have chips.

Great Euro hopes like Dario Minieri, Ivan Demidov, Katja Thater and Johnny Lodden all went broke and it looks like the Europeans have a little catching up to do.

When PL.com's baller coverage begins around noon tomorrow right here, all 380 men and women from all over the globe will be looking up at Day 1a chip leader Felipe Ramos from Brazil and his massive $360k stack.

Nobody else is really close right now, but with 380 left, this booty is definitely still up for grabs.