Everyone in poker knows what January brings. It brings a fresh start to the poker year, it brings the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, and it brings a big result for Tony Gregg. This year, the PokerStars Players NL Hold’em Championship may have added an exciting new element to the poker world, but much was the same in regards to Gregg making a big splash in the Bahamas.

Entering the 2019 edition of the PCA, Gregg had earned $3.096 million from the stop and sat third on the festival’s all-time money list. He added another $86,400 to his total haul from PCA after placing 36th from a field of 1,039 entries in the record-setting PSPC.

“I guess it’s just one of those things that when you have continued success you’re going to have that much better of a feeling playing here,” Gregg said of his string of big results from the Bahamas.

Gregg’s first result from PCA was also his largest. In 2009, he placed second in the PCA Main Event from a field of 1,347 entries to win $1.7 million. A few years later, in 2012, Gregg was back at the PCA Main Event final table from a field of 1,072 entries. This time around, he took sixth place and brought home $364,000.

“I don’t think it specifically has anything to do with the Bahamas, I just think Tony is a fantastic poker player and some places you run good and some places you run bad,” Christian Harder, 2017 PokerStars Championship Bahamas winner and good friend of Gregg, commented.

Another six-figure score from a sixth-place finish came in 2014 with Gregg earning $347,720 in the PCA $100,000 Super High Roller. Then in 2015, he took third in a $5,300 side event for $72,800.

As if those results weren’t impressive enough, in 2016 Gregg reached the final table of the PCA Main Event for the third time. Again, he found himself heads-up. Again, he finished in second place. Although he didn’t land in the winner’s circle, Gregg added another $612,175 to his bankroll.

“For me, living in the mid-Atlantic most of the time, getting out of that area in January and getting to come here, it just feels so good to be here that I guess it just motivates me to play better, be more patient, or have more faith in myself that things are going to work out,” Gregg said. “Any number of those things.”

“It’s awesome,” Harder said of seeing Gregg’s continued success. “Tony deserves all the success he has. He’s a student of the game and always keeps himself sharp even when he’s not playing live much. He’s always watching live feeds, or videos, or playing online. I’m not surprised one bit he went deep in PSPC.”

Prior to his PSPC result this year, Gregg’s last cash was in December 2017. He took a bit of a break from the poker grind, but it doesn’t appear to have caused any sort of drop-off in his play. Gregg was right back, true to form in the Bahamas, and making a deep run.

“Seeing Tony go deep in something big again hopefully inspires him to play some more poker,” Greg Merson, 2012 WSOP Main Event champion and another good friend of Gregg, said. “Not for the financial gains, but to imprint his legacy on the game as one of the all-time legends that he is.”

If it wasn’t for Louis Boutin hitting an ace on the flop with ace-king against Gregg’s pocket sevens, another final table run at this stop could have been in the cards. Ultimately, he’ll settle for the $86,400 score and look for the next tournament at Atlantis to crush.

“It’s nice,” Gregg said of Merson’s comments. “He’s one of my best friends, so of course he’s going to say that (laughs). I’ve been around for a while and it’s always good to have respect from your peers.”