PCA 2018: Maria Lampropulos Becomes The First Female PCA Main Event Champion

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure 2018’s $10,300 Main Event has wrapped successfully, attracting a total of 582 entries (178 entries on Day 1A and 393 entries on Day 1B) to create a whopping prize pool of $ 5,645,400. After 6 days of fierce battles at the felts, it was Argentina’s Maria Lampropulos who created history by becoming the first-ever female player to ship the PCA Main Event. The 36- year old won the coveted title for $1,081,100 along with the Platinum Pass worth $30,000.

“I feel very, very happy. I know that it’s incredible. It’s great,” she said after coming out on top.

Lampropulos is now second on the Argentinian live tournament earnings list with $3,875,855 in total, just behind her boyfriend Ivan Luca. It was a second seven-figure score for the poker lady who topped a field of 1,204 entries in April 2017 to win the PartyPoker Millions Live for $1,255,004.

“I am extremely grateful for the people who believed in me, especially my boyfriend. Ivan always trusted me and helped me to improve and grow. Whenever I had doubts about how I’d played a hand, he helped me regain my confidence by telling me that I can get it,” Lampropulos said after winning this event.

She reached up heads-up with Shawn Buchanan from Canada. The six-time PokerStars’ COOP title winner Buchanan started heads-up with a 2-1 chip lead but Lampropulos changed gears and managed to take the lead in just 3 hands. On the last hand of the tournament, Buchanan limped with Kh-5s and Lampropulos shoved with 10c-7c. She spiked a 10 on the board to seal the title.

Final Table Payouts (USD):

  1. Maria Lampropulos – $1,081,100
  2. Shawn Buchanan – $672,960
  3. Koray Aldemir – $481,560
  4. Adrian Mateos – $372,600
  5. Daniel Coupal – $293,560
  6. Christian Rudolph – $229,760

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