In our wildest of dreams we predicted a $2.5 million first prize. Even Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem called out at the welcome party that a $2.5 million prize would be a fanciful but happy result.

And so when the man from the cash clouds set aside his abacus and spoke from the mount, we dutifully fell over in shock and reverence.

The first prize of the 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is something few tournament runners have ever seen.

Three. Million. Dollars.

The $12,674,000 prize pool means 199 of the starting 1,347 players will walk away with cash. The top three players will win at least one million bucks. No matter how you slice it, whoever wins this event will join poker's elite by week's end. Now, it is only a matter of determining who that person will be.

It is, without question, reason to celebrate (just as Victor Ramdin's table did with 21 minutes left in the night).

When Day 1A ended, Brazilian Felipe Ramos walked away with a staggering 360,000 chips. No one here today could eclipse that mark. Still, there are several players here who have more than enough chips to do significant damage to Ramos and the other 350-400 players.

Among those players is our apparent Day 1B chip leader Chris Fernandez, a 25-year-old from Toronto. The internet marketing company owner is here with his brother Chad and father Carlton, both of whom showed up late as to not jinx their kin. Fernandez ends the day on 280,000.

Other big stacks include the likes of Brad Henry, Alex Longobardi, Scott Bateson, Eric Lui, Brian England, and Chris Underwood.

While that list does not contain the names of the much-storied Team PokerStars Pros, there are more than a few who will be joining us on Day 2. Katja Thater, Humberto Brenes, Alex Gomes, and Andre Akkari are all coming back with a bag of chips.

With only a couple of months in his datebook since winning the World Series Main Event, PokerStars Million Dollar Man Peter Eastgate came here today looking for another title. His quest is not over. He will also be coming back looking for more millions. He holds in the neighborhood of 70,000.

Noah Boeken was celebrating his 28th birthday today. The party ended early as he and a handful of other Team PokerStars Pros found the rail. Among the departed Team Pros: Dario Minieri, defending PCA champion Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Isabelle Mercier, Chris Moneymaker, and Hevad Khan. Similarly situated are PokerStars Passport holder Dustin Mele, tennis star Boris Becker, PokerStars Six member Ivan Demidov, and 2006 EPT Grand Final winner Jeff Williams.

With the two flights of Day 1 now behind us, we can look forward to Wednesday's Day 2. Though we never make guarantees, it looks all but certain that we will hit the money (199 players) before the end of play. Of course, we will be here from the first flop to the last river.

For a complete look back at our coverage from Day 1B, see any of the links below. You can also see full coverage from Day 1A HERE.

Once more with feeling
Profile of Ricky "FiveFingerz" Puleo
Random? Rigged, more like
FPP value: Brandon Schaefer and Bernard Lee
Poker camp
Early musings
Thomas Kremser: Post useless without photos
Akkari's $1m year
$36 buys a good story
The post-modern American dream revisited
The Ballad of Apestyles and Maridu
Monique
The defending champ speaks
Railbirds flock to Dario
Champ down
Nice guys finish...
Post-dinner Team PokerStars Pro Update
BREAKING--$3 million first prize
It's that time again
Five from six
Late night musings
Moving pictures
Second
After midnight on Day 1B

The latest approximate chip counts are on the chip counts page. When the full official counts are released, we will post them in the same place. To see how the World Cup of Poker turns out, see the World Cup coverage on the PokerStars Blog. In fact, it's still going on live over at PokerStars.tv.

You can always look back at all the video blog coverage on PokerStars.tv or check out any of our foreign language live reporting at these sites: German, Swedish, Spanish, Italian, Brazilian and Polish.

To properly bookend this day end report, we suggest you go over and check out the 2009 PCA prizes page.

Three million bucks to first place.

That's something we can all dream about tonight.

See you back here at 12 noon for the kick off of the main event's Day 2 and the start of the $25,000 High Roller event.

All photos Joe Giron IMPDI and Neil Stoddart

"Double up or go home," mumbled Ramdin. "I don't think I can call."

He shook his head back and forth before he reluctantly folded his hand. Ramdin was left with 45,000 as his opponent raked in the pot.

And here's some other random tid bits...

- Brandon Schaefer wasn't thrilled after his elimination. "At least I don't have to fold anymore," he sarcastically quipped. Schaefer had been card dead for the majority of Day 1B. He headed to the rail and commiserated with his good friend and EPT London Champion Michael Martin.

- Young gun Vivek 'Psyduck' Rajkumar was moved to Carlos Mortensen's table.

- Mark Seif's table broke and he was moved to Capt. Tom Franklin's table. Seif pushed his stack over the 110,000 mark, but took a huge hit and he slipped to 25,000. "It can't get any worse," he mentioned.

- I witnessed a crazy hand. All in pre-flop. Jacks versus Aces versus Big Slick. Carl Beyl from Germany flopped a set of Jacks to bust the player with A-K and he doubled through the last year's runner-up Hafiz Khan's Aces.

- Louie Cohen from Denver, CO has over 90,000. He busted two big names today... Josh Arieh and Orel Hershiser.

- Some big stacks are forming. Shane "Shaniac" Schleger is up to 150,000 after he cracked pocket sevens with pocket treys. And the current chipleader might be Chris Fernandez. He is one of the first players to surpass the 200,000 chip mark.

- Chris Moneymaker was crippled when his top pair was crushed by pocket Aces. Moneymaker had turned a gutshot but missed his outs. He was left with next to nothing in chips.

Around this time yesterday, Felipe Ramos started his incredible charge to the chip lead. The PokerStars player from Brazil bagged up something like 360,000 in chips and he was comfortably out ahead.

The news from today is that no one has caught Ramos. In fact, no one has got anywhere near him. Today's field has its chip-leaders and its short-stacks, but the largest is probably either Chris Underwood's or Eric Liu's, both of whom have round about the 150,000 mark, less than half Ramos's total from yesterday.

We still have more than an hour to play and that can change very swiftly. And no one is making any grand declarations just yet.

While we wait for the final judgment on the day, here's a brief chat with Peter Eastgate on how he deals with playing poor players. Or "fish" to use the poker term.

Watch PCA 09: Eastgate's tips on playing with fish on PokerStars.tv

As ever, all their work is available on the peerless - and totally FREE! - PokerStars.tv, where you can also watch a massive archive of televised poker from all five seasons of the EPT, the World Cup of Poker, and much, much more.

Today, the crew have been catching up with the Team PokerStars Pro members out in the Bahamas, including Katja Thater, who is describes how her 2008 wasn't quite what she had hoped.

Watch PCA 09: Katja Thater on PokerStars.tv

Thater is still in this tournament, however, grinding away with a short stack but still afloat and well-equipped to move forward through the rest of the day. Chad Brown, unfortunately, is not. He departed yesterday and the title of his video blog: "Chad Brown on bad beats" might tell us all we need to know.

Watch PCA 09: Chad Brown on resolve after a beat on PokerStars.tv

So these are but two examples of all that video action. Be sure to check in to PokerStars.tv whenever you want.

- Ricky "FiveFingerz" Puleo took a couple of hits and slipped to 37,000 before he busted a player and increased his stack to 60,000. His table broke and he was moved to the same table as Greg "FBT" Muller and PokerStars qualifier Javier "Anguila" Etayo. Within a couple of orbits, he jumped up to 100,000 when he knocked out former hockey pro Greg Mueller. Puleo's Aces held up against Mueller's Kings.

- There are two world champions sitting with ten feet of each other; Chris Moneymaker (2003 WSOP Main Event) and Spain's Carlos Mortensen (2001 WSOP Main Event). Chris Moneymaker is looking extremely relaxed. He kicked off his sneakers and seems content with a 50,000 or so stack. Mortsensen is sitting at an adjacent table and has over 69,000 which he obsessively and compulsively arranged where all the markings on the sides of the chips are perfectly aligned.

- Brandon Schaefer is down to 20,300. "After 11 hours of play, I have a 300 chip profit," joked Schaefer. Our conversation quickly changed to traveling since that's all Schaefer does these days. Usually our banter begins with, "Where are you going next?" In case you were wondering, Schaefer is headed Los Angeles when the PCA is over.

- Phil Ivey left in quite a huff after his elimination.

- Victor Ramdin lost some of his stack and the Bronx, NY native slipped to 40,000.

- Humberto Brenes and Jan Von Halle tussled in a pot together. Brenes opened for a raise and Von Halle three-bet the unusually quiet Costa Rican. Brenes tanked for a couple of minutes before he flashed a used car salesman smile and folded. Von Halle showed Brenes pocket Kings.

1) "I don't see flops."

Normally when someone says that, they're talking about not wanting to play hands with people. In Chris Moneymaker's case, he literally doesn't want to look at the flop. Shortly after the dinner break, Moneymaker got all-in pre-flop with AK versus pocket queens. Instead of waiting to see if he hit, he walked away. He didn't see he picked up his ace on the flop and scored his double up. When he came back he stacked the chips--over the 60,000 mark.

2) "She needs to double up again."

Those words came from Isabelle Mercier's manager. He's been faithfully standing behind her and tracking every move of her stack, her hands, and her number of chips minute-to-minute. He managed to see Mercier's double up immediately after dinner with tens versus sevens. With around 20,000, Mercier was looking for another opportunity. It didn't happen. She's now gone.

3) "This dealer is the nuts!"

Nick "FU_15" Maimone came back from dinner with a eye on building one of his signature ridiculous stacks, Within 30 minutes after his repast, he picked up aces against an underpair, played them to perfection, and busted victim #1. Just a few hands later, he flopped a set of aces against top pair top kicker and there went victim #2. He was at around 95,000 at the end of level 6.

4) "I can't take this anymore."

Gus Hansen at one point had 40,000 chips. By the time he came in for an early position raise with Ad-Td, he was just sick of it all. When the small blind jammed for 15,000 more, Hansen seemed resigned to the fact this was not his day. He called to see pocket aces. He never caught up. With less than 3,000 left, he was out on the next hand.

5)"..."

That is silence from Jeff Williams as he saw he was way behind with Kd-Qd on a two diamond baby board. His problem was his opponent's set of threes. Williams mumbled several things before walking off in ultimate silence.

Eastgate probably knew that's how his immediate future would pan out as the nine million dollar man. But he might have expected some impartiality on the part of the tournament officials. They didn't have to stack his table with all the stars of the game, at least not all the time.

But returning from the dinner break this evening, Eastgate was on a table with the former Wall Street trader turned bracelet winner Johnny Bax, the British internet sensation Lukas Schwartz, the heavily chipped Alex Longobardi (somewhere near the chip lead at about 120,000), the EPT tournament director turned player Thomas Kremser, and the Aussie Millions champion from 2008 Alexander Kostritsyn.

Immediately I arrived to the table, my radar twitched. "This would be a perfect table to focus on for the patented* PokerStars blog classic 'A round with...' post."

* Not actually patented.

And so here it is, the latest of an occasional series: A round with...Peter Eastgate.

Table line-up (with approximate counts):
Seat 1- Johnny Bax, 50,000
Seat 2 - Peter Eastgate, 65,000
Seat 3 - Joe McGowan, 11,000
Seat 4 - Lukas Schwartz, 35,000
Seat 5 - Jean-Robert Bellande, 12,000
Seat 6 - Unknown player, 30,000
Seat 7 - Alex Longobardi, 120,000
Seat 8 - Thomas Kremser, 32,000
Seat 9 - Alexander Kostritsyn, 55,000

Level six, blinds 400-800, 100 ante

Hand one, Eastgate in small blind
As the dealer shuffles, Bellande is talking to his friend on the rail. "I was up to 28,000. Down to 12,000 now. He [pointing at Lukas Schwartz] got me to fold ace-king. I've never folded ace-king in my life." "I had ace-jack," boasted Schwartz, with no small dollop of pride. Schwartz was first to enter the pot once the cards were out and he limped from under-the-gun. Eastgate, silently, raised it to 3,100 from the small blind and everyone else got out the way. A small pick up from the world champion.

Hand two, Eastgate on the button
It's folded to the Dane on the button and he needs no further invitation to raise, making it 2,200 to go. Joe McGowan in the small blind moves all in for his last 11,000 and Eastgate insta-calls. McGowan shows two red tens and they're way ahead of Eastgate's two black sixes. The better hand holds up and McGowan survives.

Hand three, Eastgate in the cut-off
Jean-Robert Bellande makes it 2,200 from early position and Alex Longobardi calls two places along. Lukas Schwartz also calls from the small blind and they see a flop of As-9h-4h. Bellande and Longobardi then get them all in - Bellande's final 8,000 or so - and it's A-9 for Bellande (top two) versus Qh-8h for Longobard (flush draw). The turn is a heart and that's that for Bellande as the draw gets there.

Hand four, Eastgate in hijack
Thomas Kremser, playing now without his hood but deep in conversation with his wife Marina, makes it 2,000 from early position. Everyone folds and Kremser continues to earn a lot of respect.

Hand five, Eastgate mid-position
It's folded to Eastgate, who makes it 2,200 to play. Longobardi is the only caller and they see a flop of 9s-7d-Js. After he hears his favourite word, "Check", Eastgate fires 3,000 at it, and that's good enough for another pick up.

Hand six, Eastgate mid-position
The new player to arrive in the seat vacated by Bellande is Shane "Shaniac" Schelger, who is carrying close to 70,000 in chips. Schleger is on the button and is involved straight away, calling Eastgate's now-standard bet of 2,200. The flop comes 3c-7h-2c and Eastgate bets 2,700, which Schleger calls. The turn is the Qh and Eastgate fires again, this time 4,200. Schleger calls. The river is 9h and Eastgate has another stab, this time two blue chips and one black, worth 11,100. Schelger looks as though he might fold, but then starts counting out the call and slides it in. As he does, Eastgate insta-mucks. Schleger does the same and a couple of players question whether he's allowed to do that. "Don't you have to show to win?" asks McGowan. The dealer says, "No," Schleger starts stacking the chips and tournament director extraordinaire Thomas Kremser, who will definitely know to the letter of the law what is the correct ruling, keeps schtum. He's on vacation.

Hand seven, Eastgate early position
Lukas Schwartz raises to 2,500 and everyone folds.

Hand eight, Eastgate early position
Eastgate raises to 2,200 - no surprise - and Joe McGowan makes it 5,000, which is enough to thin the field to nobody. He flips pocket queens and picks up the chips.

Hand nine, Eastgate in the big blind
It's fair to say that Eastgate has been busy in the round, as he has for most of the tournament, so when the unknown player in seat six enters the pot for the first time, raising to 2,000, Eastgate must fancy he's behind. He lets his big blind go.

And that's the round. There's was a good deal of stealing, an elimination, and then a hit to the world champion's stack courtesy of Shane Schleger. Players have now gone on the break at the end of level six.

You ready?

Total prize pool for the 2009 PCA Main Event: $12,674,000

First prize for the 2009 PCA Main Event: $3 million.

That's right. Three million bucks for the winner.

We're collectively going to snort some smelling salts while you look at the whole list of payouts.

1. $3,000,000
2. $1,700,000
3. $1,100,000
4. $750,000
5. $550,000
6. $400,000
7. $300,000
8. $214,000
9. $175,000
10. $150,000
11. $135,000
12. $120,000
13. $105,000
14. $95,000
15. $85,000
16. $75,000
17-18. $65,000
19-20. $60,000
21-22. $55,000
23-24. $50,000
25-32. $40,000
33-40. $35,000
41-48. $30,000
49-56. $27,500
57-64 $25,000
65-72. $22,500
73-80. $20,000
81-99. $17,500
100-130. $15,000
131-199 $12,500

The Brazilians are lurking near the top of the pack. Andre Akkari and Aelxandre Gomes have over 60,000

Katja Thater has been below average for most of the day. She's hanging on with 18,000. He husband Jan Von Halle is sitting at the same table as Humberto Brenes and Joao Barbosa from Portugal. Brenes chipped up to 35,000 but the shark has been relatively quiet all evening. But if sharks stop moving forward, they will die.

Hevad Khan slipped to under 10,000. He drew a brutal starting table that included Gus Hansen, Layne Flack and Orel Hershiser. Since then, Khan been moved a couple of times. He survived his starting table but needs some help if he expects to advance to Day 2.

Chris Moneymaker has moved tables again. The former champ has a stack worth around 30,000.

Today's action began ten-handed. Shortly after the dinner break, the tables will be reduced to nine players.

Update: Brandon Schaefer's table broke and he was moved to Seat 1 at Chris Moneymaker's table. Schaefer has around 16,000 or so.

Anyone who has ever met Schaefer knows he could probably compete for Nicest Guy In Poker. Unlike the old adage however, Schaefer has a pretty hard time coming in last.

The video blog team caught up with Mr. Nice Guy to talk about his PCA so far.

Watch PCA 09: Brandon Schaefer on PokerStars.tv

During the most recent sweep of the room conducted shortly before the interruption was called, a couple of new names and faces emerged who will be taking their nourishment with the particular relish. One is the PokerStars qualifier from New York Antonio Bueti, who grabbed the attention of the blog photographer Joe Giron by virtue of his huge and multicoloured stack.

Counting them up, the closest estimate for Bueti puts him at around 130,000, and that just might be good for the chip lead.

The Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin needs no introduction to the poker-following world, nor to the top of the leaderboard. And in the final couple of levels before dinner, he rocketed to close to 90,000, which is high, high in contention.

Meanwhile far across the other side of the room sits the two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, Mark Seif, who had amassed more than 100,000 at one point, before losing a few late on. Let's not forget, players started only five levels ago with 20,000 in chips. Multiplying that by five, or even four, is pretty good going in anyone's book.

Also happy at this point in proceedings are the PokerStars qualifier Ken Weiner (75,000) and his American countryman Greg Brooks (83,000). Meanwhile no one who watched Eric Liu's dominant performance at the final table of EPT London will be surprised at all to learn that he is sitting pretty with more than 55,000 right now. (That's something similar to Gus Hansen's total at this point too, whoever that world superstar may be.)

It's been a tough day for the Team PokerStars Pro Katja Thater, who has struggled to get many more than her starting stack today, but remains in the field. That's already better, though, than the defending champion Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, who perished midway through level five. So too Noah Boeken, who has been missing in action for a while, presumed busted. It is his birthday today, so we can forgive him for looking to celebrate in more traditional style.

The two Brazilians Alexandre Gomes and Andre Akkari are both going strong; ditto Dario Minieri, Humberto Brenes, Isabelle Mercier and someone named Moneymaker. Also still flourishing is Maria Mayrinck, although Johnny Lodden and Gualter Salles have long since departed.

The break is 90 minutes long and there are 430 players who will be rushing back from their dinner reservations to rejoin the fun in the Imperial Ballroom.

As they eat, you can read. Here's what has happened so far today:

Once more with feeling
Profile of Ricky "FiveFingerz" Puleo
Random? Rigged, more like
FPP value: Brandon Schaefer and Bernard Lee
Poker camp
Early musings
Thomas Kremser: Post useless without photos
Akkari's $1m year
$36 buys a good story
The post-modern American dream revisited
The Ballad of Apestyles and Maridu
Monique
The defending champ speaks
Railbirds flock to Dario
Champ down

The latest approximate chip counts are on the chip counts page. And follow the latest from the World Cup of Poker on PokerStars blog or EPT Live.

We'll be back in an hour and a half.

"The PCA is always a special tournament for poker players, especially because the location is so great and because there are so many online qualifiers and the atmosphere is very special," he said.

He had hope to come to Paradise Island in 2009 and to make another strong showing. It was not to be.

Moments ago, with only a few thousand left in his stack, he got pocket tens all in against pocket queens. Nothing magical happened and the defending champion went out before the dinner break.

- Dario Minieri's table has the most railbirds in the tournament room. Everyone's favorite scarf-wearing Italian remarkably has more spectators than some guy named Phil Ivey. Yesterday, the dubious honor of 'most railbirds' went to Daniel Negreanu.

- The final table of the World Cup of Poker has been running on the TV table after day long. "We're in last!" screamed Daniel Negreanu to us at media row as he sauntered outside for a break. Looks like Team Canada is not faring so well.

- Shane "Shaniac" Shleger is smoking hot right now after he pushed his stack to over 60,000.

- Everyone's favorite poker vagabond Brandon Schaefer is up to 32,000.

- Team PokerStars Pro Katja Thater is struggling a bit and slipped to 13,000.

- PokerStars qualifier Javier "Anguila" Etayo from Madrid, Spain doubled up when his Kings held up against pocket Jacks. 'Anguila' is Spainish for 'eel' and the Eel is looking pretty good with 37,000.

- Ricky "FiveFingerz" Puleo took a a hit int he first level and lost almost half of his stack to Nenad Medic. He fought back to get over 25,000 but has slipped since then. He's hovering around 18,000.

For Team PokerStars Pro Betrand "ElkY" Grospellier, the doldrums and crashes of last year don't apply. He kicked off the year by winning $2 million in the 2008 PCA. By year's end, he'd won a WPT event.

What bad economy?

Now, ElkY is back to defend his title. He spent a little time with our video blogging crew talking about his win and what it meant to him.

Watch PCA 09: Elky the defending champion on PokerStars.tv

"It's been six months?" I said.

"June 13th" she said. "That's the date."

When she says the date, it comes out like a person offering the day of their child's birth or a most important anniversary. For her, it was certainly the most significant day of 2008, if not one of the most important of her life.

"I still don't have hair," she said. "I'm just waiting for it to grow back."

Monique is a fixture at the PCA. Her energy and spirit is boundless, no doubt doubling the youngsters half her age. Her red hair looks as perfect as ever. She's not embarrassed to tell us it's a wig. Around poker people, she doesn't care. Around everybody else, her personality and radiant face give away nothing, so she doesn't bother to tell anybody she was diagnosed with cancer in 2008.

Monique has a regular job. From the time she was diagnosed, to the time she was had her surgery, to now, she's kept her traveling job as a sales rep. She has breakfast with the same people nearly every day.

"They have no idea!" she said.

Now, she is as bouyant as ever, bounding around the poker room, offering kisses on the cheek, and sweating her ever-lovely daughter, Isabelle Mercier. She is, as near as the doctors can tell, cancer-free.

"It's like it never happened," she said.

In June, the story was a lot different. Mercier, a longtime Team PokerStars Pro, disappeared from the World Series. Later we learned it was to care for her mom. Monique had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was due for a quick surgery. Isabelle had been scheduled to play the $50,000 HORSE event. What's more, Monique wanted her to play. In fact, while she was recovering, Monique hopped on PokerStars, entered a HORSE tourney, and made the final table.

"She practiced for me," Isabelle said then with a small smile.

Now, Monique is here, sweating her daughter, and enjoying some time by the pool. To anyone who hadn't seen her for a year, it's like nothing had changed. As far as Monique is concerned, nothing has.

We may believe nothing has changed, but in a world where fortunes can change on the turn of a card, everyone realizes Monique is a better story than nearly any we will find in this ballroom. While her daughter beats the game, Monique beats cancer.

Nothing may have changed...except for maybe how we think of the word victory.