$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 10:  500/1,500 with a 1,500 ante
Flight B Entries:  134

Flight B of the Main Event is back underway and it looks like we have 134 entries to push the combined total to 240 on the dot with one more flight to go.

Brad Karns is the new leader in Flight B and returned to a stack worth 171,000. Brian Stewart is in second with 162,000 and former leader Mark Zhang is down to 110,000.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 9:  500/1,000 with a 1,000 ante
Flight B Entries:  133

Flight B players were sent on their 60-minute dinner break when Level 9 came to an end. They will return at 6:32 pm and registration will close on the second of three starting flights.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 9:  500/1,000 with a 1,000 ante
Flight B Entries:  130

Some new faces to the series showed up in the last few levels with the new credit. David Tuthill pick up an extra $150,000 in September when he won the Commerce Hold’em Series Main Event then came back to final table the Pinktober Poker Open Main Event.

Brett Bader is a former Seminole Hard Rock Poker Player of the Year and owns two WSOPC rings along with a SHRPO title from 2013. Alex Rocha has $2.4 million in career earnings, two WSOPC rings, and tournament wins in four different state.

Among those three, Rocha is having the better day and his stack is already over 95,000.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 8:  400/800 with a 800 ante
Flight B Entries:  127

Andrew Boccia opened the action from early position and the button player three-bet shoved for his last 16,000. The blinds released and Boccia dropped in a call.

Boccia:
Button:

The button player did not look happy with his race and the board ran out to end his day.

Boccia picked up two big scores here last February when he won the Tampa Poker Classic $360 No Limit Hold’em event and finished the series with a third-place finish in the Main Event.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 7:  300/600 with a 600 ante
Flight B Entries:  122

The second break is complete and we had no change at the top of the counts. Mark Zhang continued to lead the field and increased his stack to 153,000. Brian Stewart owned the second-biggest stack with 120,8000 followed by Manny Minaya with 115,600.

Flight B players will work their way through three more levels before going on their 60-minute dinner break.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 6:  300/500 with a 500 ante
Flight B Entries:  120

Level 6 is coming to an end and Flight B players will be sent on their second break. The count is up to 120 with registration open for more than three hours so it will keep going up.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 6:  300/500 with a 500 ante
Flight B Entries:  112

Manny Minaya is one of the more popular regulars we see in our big tournament and one of more successful players in today’s field.

He has nearly $2 million in career earnings and three cashes over $100,000 including a $222,575 payout for a Borgata Poker Open $2,500 tournament win in 2008. Minaya owns two Tampa Winter Poker Open trophies and he won the $150 Big Stack RRPO title in Hollywood two weeks ago.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 5:  200/400 with a 400 ante
Flight B Entries:  102

Flight B of the Main Event hit triple-digit entries much earlier yesterday and it’s an easy lock that it will beat Flight A.

Some new arrivals include Terri-Anne Crawford, Wally Maddah, Joe Bartholdi, Karl Manouchakian, Woodrow Pass, Andrew Boccia, and Alex Ivan.

Crawford is coming off a nice score in October when she finished 14th out of 617 in the WSOP Circuit Main Event in Coconut Creek.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 4:  200/300 with a 300 ante
Flight B Entries:  95

Players returned from the first break of the day and Flight B is near to 100 entries with late registration open until ~6:30pm.

SHR regular Mark Zhang had a nice run over the first three levels. He is up from 20,000 starting stack to 96,000.

“This guy keeps flopping set!” Mark Wiser told us during the break.

It seems to be working and Zhang is the clear leader heading into the late afternoon.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 3:  100/200 with a 200 ante
Flight B Entries:  78

The first break is coming up soon and the 78 entries so far outpaces yesterday’s opening flight. It will continue to build throughout the day as players make their weekend plans.

Jacob Naumann returned to the Poker Room a few days after picking up his first Tampa Guitar Trophy. He won the $570 Eight-Handed tournament on Tuesday and took home $14,505 after a heads-up deal with fellow regular Karl Manouchakian.