BY GARY WISE

THE POKER BOOM IS OVER.

That’s a hard reality to accept, especially with poker still so overwhelmingly popular and healthy on so many fronts, but the absolute peak came and went at the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event, the largest tournament of all-time. A couple of months later, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed. The game hasn’t been the same since. Neteller and other online financial institutions were shut down, major sites left the U.S. market, and such institutions as the WSOP began to refuse direct entry into their events from online satellites. Hate to break it to you, but the good old days are over.

Then again, “good old days,” as the word “old” implies, can’t last forever. While the UIGEA sped things up, the end of the gravy train was inevitable. When money flowed freely into the poker world, everyone wanted a piece. The result was an overall lessening of quality in tournaments and television shows as unqualified organizers and producers took aim at the money pot. The resulting crap-fest being broadcast over half the channels on the TV spectrum left the casual viewer at home unable to discern choice productions. Similarly, the initial rush of adrenaline experienced by those viewers the first time they saw chips fly across their TV screens was gone.

Over 2008 and 2009, we saw the effect of the boom’s end in North American big buy-in tournament registration. While the WSOP is still healthy and growing, the Main Event hasn’t come close to repeating the level reached in 2006. And the WPT Championship has gone from 639 entrants in 2007 to 545 in 2008 to 338 in 2009. Similar declines have taken place at other WPT stops and at most of the WSOP Circuit tourneys.

In this climate, rare are the live events that are actually still growing. That’s why the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure has to be considered tournament poker’s greatest recent success story.

The PCA, held annually at the Atlantis Resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas, began in 2004 as a World Poker Tour stop. A field of 221 players each put up $7,500 to enter the main event, with Gus Hansen emerging victorious and netting a first prize of $455,780. The success of that inaugural installment and the ensuing growth of the industry led the numbers to double the following year, when John Gale triumphed over a 461-player field to the tune of $890,600.

The PCA has continued to flourish. Each year, the field size and prize pool of the main event has climbed, as have the number of events and overall registration. In 2010, Harrison Gimbel, a 19-year-old American online pro, had to outlast a field of 1,529 players from 57 countries to take home $2,200,000, a first-place prize that only decreased from the previous year because of the PCA’s decision to award prize money to the top 15 percent of the field rather than the 10 percent seen in previous years. The main event’s total prize pool of $14,831,300 was the second-largest ever for a non-WSOP event, trailing only the 2007 edition of the $25,000 buy-in WPT Championship.

It was inevitable that the cream would rise in this more financially restrictive era, and the numbers clearly indicate that the PCA qualifies as cream. Not surprisingly, industry insiders have started exploring the question of why this one tournament’s growth has been so constant. There is no one simple answer; rather, the success is owed to a combination of factors that have created a perfect storm:

Online reunion
While the designation is in no way official, the PCA has become a reunion of sorts for the online poker community. With the exception of the WSOP, no tournament series is more widely attended by as broad a demographic, in large part because the PCA offers the knowledge that online regulars, who pool information through forums and other online communications means, will finally get to unite in person some five months removed from the WSOP at either end.

Satellite system
Ever since the WSOP was forced by the UIGEA to cut satellite ties with major American-friendly sites, no event has benefitted from that method of qualifying more than the PCA. This year, several hundred players qualified through satellites of assorted shapes and sizes on PokerStars, each earning a $15,000 package that included airfare and hotel, plus other benefits. More on those in a moment …

The 18-20 demographic
Simply put, very few casinos in the U.S. are legally allowed to cater to the under-21 crowd, and those few that do can’t compete with the PCA and the Bahamas for field size and quality of setting. While official age-of-participant data isn’t kept for the tournament, it’s easy to understand why this has become the first major live event for so many “kids.”

Tropical location
Not a lot of explanation needed here, but in case you didn’t make it through fifth-grade science, here goes: It is cold in January north of the equator, but the closer you get to that horizontal line, the warmer it is. In the dead of winter, a week or two on Paradise Island beats the heck out of a week or two just about anywhere else.

PokerStars’ efforts in growing markets
Over the last few years, we’ve seen PokerStars dedicate remarkable resources to the growth of the game and their product in emerging markets. At the time of the UIGEA’s passing, poker was mostly undeveloped in eastern Asia and Latin America. The PokerStars brand has since become synonymous with the game in those areas, making the PCA the biggest event of the year for those players.

Soft field
It’s a general rule in tournament play: The larger the field, the softer it gets. While one might think that the PCA’s is a tougher field thanks to the number of qualifications online through tournament victory, there are those like Daniel Negreanu who feel that the relative inexperience of online players with live play ultimately makes life easier for the experienced live players.

Treatment of players
Tournament organizers worldwide go to great lengths to create a nourishing environment, but ’Stars really goes above and beyond at this event. In addition to a reasonable rake and a tournament structure that has proven monumentally popular with the players, PokerStars provides a pair of star-studded, all-expenses-paid blowouts that bookend the main event. This year’s notable attendees included the likes of tennis player Boris Becker, hockey player Mats Sundin, guitarist Slash, actor Adrian Grenier, model Joanna Krupa, baseball player Orel Hershiser, and 2008 Playboy Playmate of the Year Jayde Nicole, not to mention some 50 members of Team PokerStars Pro.

Multi-media
Poker players, by and large, love media attention. PokerStars streams the PCA’s final tables and the event is part of the EPT’s television calendar.

Tournament variety
Based on sheer numbers, the PCA, with 47 tournaments, already stands out from the crowd. But it’s the variety and innovation that really make the event calendar notable. There’s plenty for the smaller-stakes players, plus the PCA offers three uncommon tournaments in addition to the main event:

• The High Roller: Featuring a $25,000 buy-in, the event attracted 359 players this year, including more than a couple of rich flounders looking for lightning to strike. In the end, it was 21-year-old American William Reynolds who took home $576,240. Reynolds defeated Canadian Will Molson, who remarkably finished second in the 2009 edition as well.

Reynolds and Molson headlined a mostly unknown final table that survived a star-studded onslaught when there were just two tables remaining. German professional Sandra Naujoks was the last player eliminated on the penultimate day of play in ninth place, while world champions Joe Cada and Greg Raymer finished 11th and 14th, respectively. For Cada, it was his first live cash since his championship victory in November.

• Battleship: Bridging the gap between live and online play, Battleship tournaments see two players face one another in person with back-to-back laptops between them, looking much like the game we all played as kids that had us yelling about which of our boats had been sunken. The Battleship tournaments in the Bahamas are played on PokerStars software, using virtual cards and live reads until one player is eliminated. These events usually feature 32- or 64-player brackets.

• World Cup: An event featuring three-player teams representing assorted countries, it began with online qualifying events and a 54-nation field. By the time the finals were ready to be held at Atlantis, the field was down to USA, Germany, Canada, Chile, Chinese Taipei, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Italy, and Norway. In the end, it was Chinese Taipei taking home the title and $100,000, toppling Croatia in the final.

Star power, location, favorable game conditions, parties … each is an attractive enticement for the tournament traveler in its own right, but it’s their amalgamation that has created an event that seems poised to make the Atlantis Resort bust at the seams. The peak of the poker boom may well be a thing of the past, but that doesn’t mean poker’s best products won’t continue to shine. Looking at the numbers, it’s clear that the PCA is just such a product, shining as bright as the Bahamian sun on a beautiful January afternoon.

Gary Wise is a poker columnist for ALL IN and ESPN.com and is a regular panelist on Pokerroad.com’s The Poker Beat.