$350 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 9: 400/800 with a 100 ante
Flight F Entries: 135

Registration closed on the final flight of Event 1 with 135 entries in the evening session. That brings the final Event 1 total up to 721 for a very nice opening 2016 WPO prize pool.

Today’s players will make their way through to Level 14 when the survivors will bag up and join the 107 who already advanced to Day 2 tomorrow at noon.

Tournament breakdown:

$350 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 8: 300/600 with a 75 ante
Flight F Entries: 130

Flight F players are on their second break of the day which leaves only 15 minutes for players to make their way to the poker room for a piece of the big opening pie.

It looks like Brandon Byars is making the most of his last chance in Event 1. He was down to only 5,000 earlier but now sits with ~200,000 heading into the last six levels of the night. If play ended right now, that would be good enough for a top 15 stack.

We’ll update the entry count once it’s official and the prize pool/payout information will be released later this evening.

$350 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 7: 250/500 with a 75 ante
Flight F Entries: 124

The entrant count only clicked up a little over the last 30 minutes as players seem content with their stacks or fishing in the cash game.

One later entry was SHRP regular Carlos Loving. He can be found grinding tournament around the state and he’s collected several SHRP trophies along the way plus his first career WSOP Circuit ring in November.

$350 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 6: 200/400 with a 50 ante
Flight F Entries: 120

The poker room is hopping on a Saturday night and only part of that is the sixth flight of Event 1. Every table has a game and the sound is joyous grinding.

Reigning Seminole Hard Rock Poker Player of the Year David Prociak is making an appearance today and trying to work his way through the Flight F field. He has captured several SHRP titles around the state but is still looking for his first Seminole Hard Rock Tampa title. Prociak didn’t only crush Florida poker last year, he also earned his first WSOP bracelet this summer in the $1,500 Stud/8 event.

$350 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 5: 150/300 with a 50 ante
Flight F Entries: 100

The night-time last flight of Event 1 jumped over 100 entries after the first break of the day and it will continue to climb until we lock things down at 10:30pm.

Seminole Hard Rock Poker team member Michael Laake is back with us this evening after an unsuccessful first firing this afternoon. He’s a regular in the poker room and has some nice scores here among his $825,000 in career earnings. In the last year, Laake won the $560 Deep Stacks event during the 2015 Winter Poker Open, captured the $1,100 Six-Max title during the 2016 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown, and cashed six times this summer during the WSOP including a final table appearance.

$350 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Returning to Level 15: 1,500/3,000 with a 500 ante
Players Remaining: 107 of 586

Structure Sheet

Flight A: 105 Entries, 17 Advanced
Flight B: 93 Entries, 22 Advanced
Flight C: 98 Entries, 18 Advanced
Flight D: 106 Entries, 16 Advanced
Flight E: 184 Entries, 34 Advanced
Flight F: Saturday at 6pm
Day 2: Sunday at Noon

Day 2 chip counts through Flight E:

$350 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 3: 75/150 with a 25 ante
Flight F Entries: 86

The entry count clicked to 86 during Level 3 to push the Event 1 prize pool over $200,000 with more than three hours left to get in the game. Plenty of time to run it higher.

Eric Wert has experience beating this big field, multi-day tournaments in this series. He took the lion’s share of the prize money in the $150 Big Stack tournament during last year’s Winter Poker Open, a tournament which drew 546 entries. Wert followed that up with another trophy in a turbo event during the 2016 Seminole Hard Rock Lucky Hearts Poker Open a month later.

$350 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 2: 50/100
Flight F Entries: 60

The final flight of Event 1 continues to fill in as people make their way from their homes to the poker room. The entry count hit 60 at the midpoint of Level 2 and only a dozen or so away from making it a $200,000 prize pool.

Brandon Byars is back this evening after whiffing his bullet last night. He’s looking to finish out his 2016 with a strong performance in the series. Byars has picked up nearly $50,000 in tournament earnings since January including second place in the $150 Summer Deep Stacks Poker Series event, ninth place in the $1,100 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Six-Max tournament, and more than $30,000 for winning the Spring Little Slick Series Main Event in April.

$350 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 14: 1,200/2,400 with a 400 ante
Flight E Players Remaining: 34 of 184

The clock is paused with 10 minutes remaining and tournament staff just instructed the dealers to deal three more hands. There’s a handful of big stacks, but it appears Leif Oskarrson will go down as the leader.

Oskarrson’s holdings comfortably top 200,000, but he’s trailed closely by Matthew Border who picked up the blinds and antes after raising with ace-jack and ace-king in consecutive hands. It appears Border’s stack tops 200,000 as well.

Complete chip counts will be posted shortly after play concludes.

$350 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 13: 1,000/2,000 with a 300 ante
Flight E Players Remaining: 46 of 184

Action was all in preflop with Len Nhoung owning the chip advantage over Josias Santos and Joe Buonodono. Santos had the best of it and was drawing live for a side pot between him and Nhoung.

Santos:
Buonodono:
Nhoung:

Runout:

The pot grew Buonodono’s stack to just under 65,000 with about an hour left in the day. Santos earned the side pot while Nhoung spread her chips around the table.