24-year-old Galen Hall, despite entering the final table with less than a third the stack of chip leader Chris Oliver, took down the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure main event yesterday for a top prize worth $2.3 million.

Hall’s victory, even when noting his numerous past online poker successes, made for surprising television last night during ESPN’s historic same day airing of the contest, as Chris Oliver in many ways dominated the proceedings, beginning the final table with over 40% of the chips in play, and still having over 20,000,000 more than Hall by the time the heads-up portion of the tournament began. 

Oliver, a 21-year-old online pro who actually dropped out of high school to pursue poker full time, was clearly the heavy favorite for most of the night- to even the most NFL-playoff distracted viewer- but was eventually cut down to size in a quick succession of hands that saw him first double up Hall with Four-Two versus Ace-Two, on an action stimulating Two-Four-Ace flop, and then double him up again to become the short stack with Ace-Nine versus pocket Kings.

Once Oliver lost his familiar commanding lead he would not get it back, and not long later was forced to settle for the runner-up, $1,800,000 cut, of the $15,132,000 total prize pool. 

Hall, with the largest slice of that pool now in his possession- not to mention the coveted PCA trophy- will now be able to begin his collegiate career at Stanford in style- a personal goal he's had for sometime according to a recent PokerStars press release.

The final table finish positions for the 2011 PCA main event were as follows:

1st.  Galen Hall- $2,300,000

2nd.  Chris Oliver- $1,800,000

3rd.  Anton Ionel- $1,350,000

4th.  Sam Stein- $1,000,000

5th.  Mike Sowers- $700,000

6th.  Bolivar Palacios- $450,000

7th.  Max Weinberg- $300,000

8th.  Philippe Plouffe- $202,000