Amateur John Dibella Wins 2012 PCA Main Event

Published on January 14th, 2012 12:44 am EST

The 2012 PCA (Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure) main event was filled with professionals, but in the end it was an amateur from New York who ended up taking down the tournament.

John Dibella, a 43-year-old daytrader from New York, outlasted 1,071 other entrants to take down the biggest score of his career. Dibella ended up taking home $1,775,000 after agreeing to a deal with Kyle Julius during heads-up play.

According to Pokerstars, Dibella qualified for the main event through a $1,000 live satellite. Dibella ended up parlaying this seat into nearly $2 million.

The final hand of the tournament came when Kyle Julius' attempted bluff ran into Dibella's rivered flush. With the board reading Ac-Qh-3c-8d-Tc, Julius pushed all of his chips into the middle following a 1 million chip bet from Dibella. Dibella called, and the two players turned up:

Dibella - 5c-6c
Julis - 9d-6s

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Here is how the final table ended up finishing out on Friday:

John Dibella, $1,775,000
Kyle Julis, $1,500,000
Faraz Jaka, $755,000
Xuan Liu, $600,000
Mark Drover, $468,000
Anthony Gregg, $364,000
David Bernstein, $260,000
Ruben Visser, $156,400

With her fourth place finish in the event, Xuan Liu has earned the distinction of having the largest ever cash by a female in a PCA event.

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The 2012 PCA officially wraps up tomorrow, though many players have already started to make their way to Australia for the "Aussie Millions".


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Filed Under: Tournament Results