$1,700 Winter Poker Open Championship
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 10:  1,000/2,000 with a 2,000 ante
Day 1C Entries: 231

Players are back in their seats, the black chips are out of play, and registration closed for the 2022 Tampa Winter Poker Open Championship. The clock shows an unofficial 231 entries for Day 1C and we will post the numbers once the math is complete.

Mark Koeln was well over 300K earlier in the day but dropped a bit to 262,500. That is still good enough for the lead after dinner with his neighbor Jerry Silva sitting with 223,500.

$1,700 Winter Poker Open Championship
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 9:  800/1,600 with a 1,600 ante
Day 1C Entries: 223

Day 1C players are now on their 60-minute dinner break and will return at 6:30 pm. Registration will remain open during that time but close when cards go back in the air.

$1,700 Winter Poker Open Championship
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 9:  800/1,600 with a 1,600 ante
Day 1C Entries: 212

We are one level away, plus the 60-minute dinner break, before we close down registration for the Championship. The prize pool is up to $678,000 and we will add some before we lock it down at 6:30 pm.

More familiar faces include Nicole Diaz, Ryan Luker, Stephen Brite, John Dolan, and David Tuthill.

$1,700 Winter Poker Open Championship
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 8:  600/1,200 with a 1,200 ante
Day 1C Entries: 200

The field now contains our defending champion; T.K. Miles joined Day 1C this afternoon, trying to go back-to-back. He conquered the 772-entry Championship last year with an outright win for $213K and put himself at the top of our all-time cash list.

Miles has $4.7 million in career earnings with $719K of that coming from our room. For a brief moment, 2021 WPT Tampa champ Brian Altman surpassed him at the top of the all-time list but Miles took it back with two deep runs during the 2022 Tampa Poker Classic.

$1,700 Winter Poker Open Championship
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 7:  500/1,000 with a 1,000 ante
Day 1C Entries: 195

The stack sizes ramped up a bit over the previous three levels and we found a couple of stacks towering over the rest. Mark Koeln is the new leader in the room with a healthy barrel of 5Ks and stack worth 233,000.

Josh Adkins is also over 200K with 208,100 and a handful getting up there.

$1,700 Winter Poker Open Championship
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 6:  400/800 with a 800 ante
Day 1C Entries: 185

It’s time for another break and players are leaving the tables to catch a breather from the action. They will return to play three more levels before the dinner break and the closing of registration for the Championship.

$1,700 Winter Poker Open Championship
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 6:  400/800 with a 800 ante
Day 1C Entries: 180

The Championship draws players from around the country, some looking for the action, others for great weather, and some for both.

We ran into Northeast legend Gerry Aiello in today’s field and he was giving a Poker Room tour to his brother-in-law Jim last night during Day 1B.

But today it’s all about grinding his stack and Aiello is right around average heading into the second break.

$1,700 Winter Poker Open Championship
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 5:  300/600 with a 600 ante
Day 1C Entries: 160

Players are definitely being more conservative with their stacks today, there are no other opening days and they need a bag today if they want to win. Because of that, we are seeing less huge stacks at this point than in earlier starting days.

Charles Montalvo and Josias Santos are among those moving in the right direction. Montalvo is among the leaders with 85,200 and Josias Santos topped 70K over the last level.

$1,700 Winter Poker Open Championship
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 5:  300/600 with a 600 ante
Day 1C Entries: 153

As we move deeper into the afternoon, more players are in seats. Day 1C is up to 153 entries for 393 total and a prize pool of nearly $600,000.

Tom McDonald and Peter Hsu are in the field, trying for another big score. McDonald went deep in two tournaments during the 2022 Tampa Poker Classic; he finished runner-up out of 1,463 in the opening $400 Deep Stack and closed the series with a third place in the Championship.

On top of that, he finished 14th in the WSOP Super Seniors and 41st in our WPT Tampa Championship a few months ago.

Hsu’s score was a little more recent, two weeks ago in Hollywood, when he turned one bullet in their huge RRPO $400 opening event into a $191K when he won the title in the 6,134-entry field.

$1,700 Winter Poker Open Championship
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 4:  300/500 with a 500 ante
Day 1C Entries: 135

Cards are back in the air after the first break and we have a familiar face at the top of the counts. Tampa regular Wally Maddah leads the field with 82,300 with a whole lot of players not far behind. They’ll be trying to chase him down while he tries to build.