$1,650 No Limit Hold’em WPT Championship

End of Level 3: Blinds 75/150/25 ante

Next Level 4:  Blinds 100/200/25

Players are enjoying a 15 minute break after grinding through the first three levels of play.

Up to 103 entries in this flight for a total of 249, bringing the prize pool to $373,500.

After the break, there will be one more level (40 minutes) for late registration and re-entries.

$1,650 No Limit Hold’em WPT Championship

Level 3: Blinds 75/150/25 ante

Floridian Mark Rose set the trap and bagged the big blind, who got all-in holding AQ against Mark’s pocket Kings.

But pocket Kings are called ‘Ace-magnets’ for a reason.  An Ace on the flop gave his opponent a bigger pair and the pot and sent Mark back to the registration window.  He has re-entered and landed at a new table.

$1,650 No Limit Hold’em WPT Championship

Level 3: Blinds 75/150/25 ante

Spotted some familiar faces that are making their first tournament appearances during this Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Spring Poker Open.

Robert Melo is in the process of relocating from New York down to Florida.   He’s been a regular in Atlantic City for years.  Might as well get started making his mark on the local poker scene.

Jean ‘Prince’ Gaspard has tournament wins all across the country, but his WSOP Circuit Championship ring was won in 2009 in New Orleans.  Prince has over $1.2 million in reported lifetime tournament earnings.

Charlie Townsend is another regular on the Atlantic City tournament scene.  He’s booked wins there, Florida, Mississippi and Nevada with tournament earnings approaching $400,000.

$1,650 No Limit Hold’em WPT Championship

Level 2: Blinds 75/150

WPT Champion’s Cup member Shawn Cunix is back again for Flight 3.  After taking three shots during the first two flights yesterday, he’s firing bullet four here today.

Some other familiar faces are back for another go.  Stephen Diamantas, (above) winner of the SHRT Winter Poker Open Championship last December arrived late for Flight 1 and busted out early.  He’s trying again today.

John Pappas is another player who didn’t make it to the dinner break in Flight 1.  He’s back for another go today.

Terri Anne Crawford went deep in flight 1 yesterday, busting out shortly before play ended for the night.  She’s giving it another try today.

$1,650 No Limit Hold’em WPT Championship

Level 2: Blinds 75/150

Level 2 is underway with players arriving at a regular pace.  The count is up to 73 entrants for Flight 3, bringing the overall total to 219.

One player we didn’t expect to see in the main event is Jim Rumptz, who won Event 1 and $34,911 plus a seat in this event.  After that win, he had to return home to Memphis to deal with his business taxes, for which the deadline is Monday.  He says he got that wrapped up yesterday and flew back last night.

$1,650 No Limit Hold’em WPT Championship

Level 1: Blinds 50/100

This event carries a $300,000 Guarantee on the total prize pool — and that guarantee has just been met.  56 players are registered for Flight 3, making the total entries over three starting flights 202.  Prize pool is now $303,000.

Of course players can still register and re-enter and that number will continue to grow until the start of level 5.

$1,650 No Limit Hold’em WPT Championship

Level 1: Blinds 50/100

The third and final starting flight of the main event is underway.  Players started with 20,000 chips and all Day 1 levels are 40 minutes long.

Late registration and re-entry are available until the start of level 5 (about 1:55pm).

Cards are in the air!

The biggest event of the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Spring Poker Open started on Day 8 of the 10 day tournament series.

The $1,650 No Limit Hold’em Spring Poker Open Championship saw two of its three starting flights get cards in the air on Friday. The first flight got underway at 11 am and had 85 hopeful poker players pony up the buy-in for their shot at a piece of the $300,000 guaranteed prizepool.

The first flight was scheduled to play 14 levels or when it was down to 14% of the field. 20 minutes into Level 14, there was an elimination that trimmed the field down to 12 players and marked the end of the flight. Every subsequent flight will play 20 minutes into level 14 before bagging and tagging.

Martin Welch and Natasha Barbour topped the chip counts in the first flight, bagging 267,400 and 192,900, respectively.

Justin Zaki was the last elimination of the first flight and had just over a minute to re-enter the event and late register for the second flight, which started at 7 pm.

The second flight drew slightly fewer players than the first. 61 players registered for the second flight. Joining Zaki in the second flight were fellow top flight pros Shawn Cunix and John Dolan. All three players have seven figures in tournament earnings. Cunix has a WPT title to his name and Dolan has a WSOP Circuit ring and a WSOP Main Event final table appearance.

All three of them fired multiple bullets at the event, and none of them were able to survive a flight. They will have one final chance at this event when the third and final starting flight gets cards in the air at 11 am on Saturday.

Paul Stanechewski and Marc Lowe topped the chip counts of the second flight. Stanechewski bagged 260,900 and Lowe sealed up a bag full of 222,800 tournament chips.

Here are a look at the chip counts from the first two flights:

1. Martin Welch – 267,400
2. Paul Stanechewski – 260,900
3. Marc Lowe – 222,800
4. Carter Gent – 206,300
5. Natasha Barbour – 192,300
6. Greg Jennings – 177,000
7. Tommy Helms – 175,300
8. Yousef Nassr – 155,000
9. Rod Rodriguez – 153,200
10. Vitor Coelho – 152,000
11. Davis Adams – 124,900
12. Ronald “RJ” Sullivan – 124,500
13. Chris Dombrowski – 110,800
14. Brenda Lane-Worley – 100,500
15. Barry Wiedemann – 94,000
16. Amaury Lopez – 88,000
17. David Mandt – 84,600
18. Kevin Blewitt – 84,000
19. Jeff Coutroulis – 70,900
20. Larry Pileggi – 46,900
21. Emad Ayad – 28,000

Check back on Saturday morning to SHRTPoker.com for complete coverage of the third flight of the Spring Poker Open Championship event.

$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.

$1,650 No Limit Hold’em WPT Championship

Level 14: 1,200/2,400/400

Rob Manjura raised to 5,000 from early position and Paul Stanechewski three-bet to 17,000 from late position. Manjura called and the two players watched the dealer spread a flop of .

Manjura checked and Stanechewski bet 20,000. Manjura check-raised all in for his last 58,000 and Stanechewski snap-called and tabled .

Manjura was in bad shape as he tabled . The turn was the and the river was the to keep Stanechewski in the lead and eliminate Manjura just before the end of the day.

We are left with nine players in the second flight and there are just a few minutes left in the day.