PokerStars Says Goodbye to the PCA

• PokerStars discontinues PCA

• More focus to be given to other tournament events

• PSPC returns to Barcelona in 2020

About a week ago, PokerStars announced that it has officially discontinued the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA). Since it was launched way back in 2004, the tournament event has built a reputation for being one of the premier live stops on the global poker scene.

In the 15 years it has been in existence, the PCA has gone through a number of significant changes which were mostly part of PokerStars dedication to improving the gaming experience. It has done this by making its offerings more attractive to players from all around the world.

Unfortunately, this did not work out quite well when it comes to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure despite its outstanding record. According to Eric Hollreiser, MD for PokerStars, even though the PCA was one of the premier events in the global poker scene, it had gradually lost steam each passing year and players were also losing interest citing dissatisfaction with the location of the tournament series.

It goes without saying that the online poker industry is very competitive and therefore for an online poker tournament to be successful, it needs to keep growing and adding more fans or players. Despite the poker operator’s efforts to experiment with new features and a number of notable changes aimed at boosting player interest, the PCA still failed to get back on track.

The poker attendance, begun to decline way back in 2012 – there were only 1,072 registrations and this was largely due to the lack of online satellites for players in North America. This downward trend continued for the next years and eventually led to the decision to pull the plug on the PCA with the 2018 and 2019 numbers being the final straw that proved that it would no longer be a sustainable endeavor for the company.

What Next?

In retrospective, the decision by PokerStars to end the PCA had been expected for quite some time. In fact, the tournament technically had its grave dug when it was rebranded to “PokerStars Championship Bahamas” back in 2017, a move that was met with a lot of criticism and backlash from the poker community. The PCA did make its return in 2018 but it was already too late since the fans and poker players had already moved on.

Now that the PCA is out of the picture, PokerStars is now focusing on some of its other very popular tournaments such as the PokerStars Players Championship (PSPC), the WCOOP and the European Poker Tour (EPT). The PSPC is not among the most anticipated poker events and it will be heading to Barcelona in 2020.

A lot of hype is already being built around the event and so many people are excited about it especially considering that players have the chance to win Platinum Passes to the premier event. So, if you were a fan of the PCA, this might just be the right replacement for you.