With the last of the satellites wrapping up on Thursday night, most of the attention at the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Spring Poker Open has is turning towards the $1,650 No Limit Hold’em main event.
The main event carries a $300,000 guaranteed prizepool and the first of the three starting flights get cards in the air at 11 am on Friday morning. The first flight is scheduled to play 14 levels, but will stop play earlier if 14% of the field is reached. Every subsequent flight will play the same amount of time.
Players will be able to re-enter multiple flights regardless of whether or not they survive an earlier flight or not. If a player survives a flight and wants to enter a later flight, he may do so and take the bigger of the two stacks into Day 2.
The second flight will take place on Friday evening at 7 pm and the third flight gets underway Saturday morning at 11 am. The survivors of those three flights will be back on Sunday morning at 11 am to play down to a winner.
The field will have starting stacks of 20,000 in tournament chips with levels lasting 40 minutes on Day 1. The levels will increase to 50 minutes long on Day 2.
During the last WPT Regional series held at the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa, the Tampa Winter Poker Open, the $1,650 No Limit Hold’em main event drew 301 players, which generated a prizepool of $451,500.
Stephen Diamantas defeated Ryan Sponaugle heads-up to take home the $121,900 first place prize money, the trophy, and the guitar that goes to the winner of every Seminole Hard Rock main event. Sponaugle, who already has a final table under his belt at the Spring Poker Open, took home $72,240 for his efforts.
Diamantas topped a final table that featured well-known pros Allen Kessler and Cord Garcia to earn a six-figure payday.
Here are a look at the final table results from the Winter Poker Open:
1. Stephen Diamantas – $121,900
2. Ryan Sponaugle – $72,240
3. Stephen Korfonta – $47,408
4. Lance “Cord” Garcia – $32,734
5. Joshua Miller – $24,155
6. Allen Kessler – $19,189
7. David DeBoer – $14,674
8. Brandon Vasapolle – $10,610
9. David Tuthill – $7,676