$1,650 No Limit Hold’em WPT Championship

There were 61 players that showed up to play the second starting flight of the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Spring Poker Open Championship.

Cards got in the air at 7 pm and after playing 13.5 levels, those 61 players were trimmed down to just 9. Those nine survivors will join the 12 survivors of the first flight on Sunday when players come back for the final day of this event.

There were a few big time pros that showed up to play Day 1 of this No Limit Hold’em event with a $300,000 guaranteed prizepool.

2010 November Niner John Dolan made his way to Tampa to try and add to his $3.1 million in live tournament earnings. Justin Zaki and Shawn Cunix both have seven figures in earnings themselves and joined Dolan in the event. Unfortunately for the trio of pros, none of them were able to survive the day.

Zaki busted out of the tournament very late in the day when there were two six-handed tables running. He was crippled when he got his chips all in preflop against Marc Lowe. Lowe showed pocket nines and was racing against Zaki’s A-K. Lowe turned a full house and left Zaki drawing dead.

Lowe used that hand to propel him forward and finished the day as one of the chip leaders, bagging 222,800 in chips. Lowe also busted John Dolan earlier in the day when his trip kings had Dolan’s two pair drawing dead when they got all in on the turn. 

Here are a look at the final chip counts from the survivors of the second flight:

1. Paul Stanechewski – 260,900
2. Marc Lowe – 222,800
3. Carter Gent – 206,300
4. Vitor Coelho – 152,000
5. Brenda Lane-Worley – 100,500
6. Barry Wiedemann – 94,000
7. Kevin Blewitt – 84,000
8. Jeff Coutroulis – 70,900
9. Emad Ayad – 28,000

The final day of the tournament is on Sunday and cards will get in the air at 11 am. There is a third starting flight on Saturday morning at 11 am.