$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 8: 300/600 with a 75 ante
Flight D Entries: 99
Players are midway through the eighth level of the day to leave only 30 minutes for players to get down to the poker room. The entrant count his 99 and we’re waiting to see who will jump it up to 100.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 7: 250/500 with a 75 ante
Flight D Entries: 94
The tournament clock continues to click towards triple digit entries and we should get to 100 before registration closes at 10:30.
Two former SHRP champs are sitting side-by-side at the front of the room and won’t be moving anytime soon. Vitol Coelho won his sole SHRP trophy this past spring when he took down the 2,692-entry opening event of the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown.
Seminole Hard Rock team member Michael Laake has seven SHRP trophies from around the state. His last came during the same series as Coelho’s when he won the $1,100 Six-Max event. But on the Winter Poker Open side, Laake is our defending champion in this tournament when he was the last player standing among 633 other competitors.
Those two players are responsible for nearly $2 million in career earnings and will be two tough seats for the rest of the table to get through.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 6: 200/400 with a 50 ante
Flight D Entries: 86
After a slow start, the Friday evening flight quickly put the numbers in the game and it is now the biggest of the tournament so far. There are still more than 90 minutes remaining in registration if anyone wants to make the trek to the poker room.
Patrick Eskandar is making his first appearance in the WPO. The California grinder pushed his career tournament earnings over $600,000 a few weeks ago when he won the Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open” $1,650 Purple Chip Bounty event for more than $33,000.
Eskandar’s biggest score came in the 2010 WSOP Main Event when he finished 20th out of 7,319 players to earn $317,000.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 5: 150/300 with a 50 ante
Flight D Entries: 75
Players are back in their seats after the first break of the day and the entry count continues to increase at a steady interval. We’re seeing more regular faces put up the buy-in and we should have a nice field by the time registration closes at 10:30pm.
John Holley jumped in before the break and ready to continue the heater he’s been running. He pulled the rare feat of cashing twice in the same day on Wednesday when he made the money in the $150/$50,000 Event 4 then turned around and final tabled the Pot Limit Omaha a few hours later. It was just another day for Holley and not his best single day either, he cashed three times in one day during the 2016 Coco Poker Open.
Going back into the past, but only two weeks, Holley cashed twice in the 2016 RRPO in Hollywood with one final table followed up by two WSOP Circuit event final tables before coming down to the warmer climes of Tampa.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Day 2 Blinds: 1,500/3,000 with a 500 ante
Players Remaining: 41 of 232
Flight A: 76 Entries, 14 Advanced
Flight B: 76 Entries, 12 Advanced
Flight C: 80 Entries, 15 Advanced
Flight D: Friday @ 6pm
Flight E: Saturday @11am
Flight F: Saturday @ 6pm
Day 2: Sunday @ Noon
Day 2 chip counts through Flight C:
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jerry | Silva | 473,000 |
| 2 | Nicholas | Williams | 240,500 |
| 3 | Rafael | Reis | 234,000 |
| 4 | Ari | Prostak | 186,500 |
| 5 | Joseph | Acquavella | 185,000 |
| 6 | Ivan | Coles | 167,000 |
| 7 | Tom | Nguyen | 166,500 |
| 8 | William | Kopp | 162,000 |
| 9 | Ian | Pearson | 160,000 |
| 10 | William | Ondrus | 148,500 |
| 11 | Claudimir | Osorio | 138,000 |
| 12 | Karl | Manouchakian | 137,500 |
| 13 | Mohammad | Goodarzi | 135,500 |
| 14 | Mostafa | Asari Piralvan | 134,000 |
| 15 | Stevie | Trizis | 129,000 |
| 16 | Jordan | Joeckel | 101,500 |
| 17 | John | Alegria | 101,000 |
| 18 | Maroun | Akiki | 97,000 |
| 19 | James | Carmadella | 97,000 |
| 20 | Anthony | Astarita | 95,500 |
| 21 | Patrick | Curry | 93,500 |
| 22 | Elizabeth | Provan | 92,000 |
| 23 | Andre | Boyer | 90,000 |
| 24 | Allauddin | Khan | 88,000 |
| 25 | Michael | Soares | 85,000 |
| 26 | Mark "Bud" | Wiser | 84,500 |
| 27 | Matthew | Leecy | 82,000 |
| 28 | Michael | Traficante | 82,000 |
| 29 | Rod | Rodrigue | 72,500 |
| 30 | Daniel | Lobato | 72,500 |
| 31 | Dimitry | Agrachov | 70,000 |
| 32 | Mohammad | Affaneh | 61,500 |
| 33 | Daniel | Midal | 61,000 |
| 34 | Yao | Zhao | 57,500 |
| 35 | John | O'Neal | 54,500 |
| 36 | Meir | Barack | 52,500 |
| 37 | Michael | Gencal | 47,500 |
| 38 | Marvin | Karlins | 42,000 |
| 39 | Brian | Blanchard | 37,500 |
| 40 | Stuart | Ferguson | 18,500 |
| 41 | Forrest | Jahn III | 12,500 |
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 3: 75/150 with a 25 ante
Flight D Entries: 55
We continue to see a nice pace of new players jumping in the game as we get closer to the $200,000 guaranteed prize pool.
John Dolan will have to fire another bullet if he wants to add another title to his credit. He was an early entrant and early exit in the second level but he can run another one up.
Dolan is known to most as a member of the 2010 WSOP Main Event November Nine, where he took home $1.77 million for sixth place, but that is not his only big score. Three of his top five cashes came in SHRP tournaments with a fourth place in the 2014 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship ($549K), runner-up in the 2012 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship ($459K), and a title in the 2014 Coco Poker Open Championship ($220K).
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 2: 50/100
Flight D Entries: 40
It was slow progress over the first level of Flight D but we’re seeing an influx of players in the second level including local favorite Manny Minaya.
He’s sitting at a fun little table with Hebert Woodbery and Seminole Hard Rock Tampa ambassador Wally Maddah to his left. But Minaya can probably handle those two with his experience. He has nearly $1.7 million career earnings that include a Borgata win for $222,000 and a WSOP Circuit Main Event runner-up in Tunica. Minaya’s second career cash was only a fourth place finish in a WSOP Omaha/8 tournament in 2005.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 14: 1,200/2,400 with a 400 ante
Flight C Players Remaining: 15 of 80
The clock is paused with 10 minutes left in Level 14 and tournament staff just announced players will log three more hands before action concludes.
Rafael Reis, who won the largest event in Florida poker history just about three weeks ago at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Poker Open, is smiling ear-to-ear as he’ll likely be going home as the Flight C chip leader. Reis has had an active day that’s enjoyed more peaks than valleys and he currently sits well above 200,000. Those bagging alongside Reis include Elizabeth Provan who has some history with the pace setter. Provan, too, final tabled the record-setting RRPO event finishing seventh for more than $53,000.
The clock shows 15 players and they’re all that’s remaining from 80 starters. Other notables still in alongside Reis and Provan include Anthony Astarita, winner of this summer’s WPTDeepStacks-Tampa Main Event. Reigning Winter Poker Open Championship winner John Templeton, meanwhile, was a recent elimination.
Complete chip counts through Flight C will be posted within the hour.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 13: 1,000/2,000 with a 300 ante
Flight C Players Remaining: 18 of 80
Anthony Astarita just scored a knockout eliminating Tampa regular Mike Raimon in a multi-way pot. Astarita had been skidding downward, but his stack now tops 100,000 will less than an hour remaining in the day.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 1: 25/50
Event 7 has locked down three flights in the $200,000 Guarantee tournament with three more yet to go. Flight D will round out the Friday night action as we go head-first into the weekend.
The first three flights combined to put 232 entries in the event and put them more than halfway towards the money goal. We’ll have another good addition this evening then pile it up on Saturday.
Players will sit down to 20,000 starting stacks and levels will run 30 minutes a pop. Late registration is available until the start of Level 9 at 10:30pm and they can re-enter as often as needed during that time. Flight D will continue at the point until the end of Level 14 when all survivors will bag up their chips for a return on Sunday.
