$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 7: 300/600 with a 600 ante
Day 1A Entries: 94
We have a new chip leader in the Main Event and the only player with a six-digit stack. WSOP Circuit ring owner Austin Buchanan climbed up to 115,700 to lead the way with Ryan Luker sitting a little back in second with 98,500.
There’s still a long way to go but that is a great start for both of them.
$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 6: 300/500 with a 500 ante
Day 1A Entries: 92
Another break is here and players are leaving the area to grab a snack or fresh air. They will return to play three more levels before going on a one-hour dinner break.
$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 6: 300/500 with a 500 ante
Day 1A Entries: 88
The Poker Room is filling up and the Main Event is nearing triple digits on the entry count. A busy Thursday afternoon.
One of the recent entries came from John-Christian Templeton, a former champion of this very tournament. He was part of the 453-entry Winter Poker Open Main Event field and took down the title after a three-way chop. Templeton earned the biggest score of the year and banked $134,731
$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 5: 200/400 with a 400 ante
Day 1A Entries: 81
Tony March is a well-known player in our Poker Room, talented and generous and friendly. On Monday, he picked up his first career SHR Tampa guitar trophy in the $360 Deep Stack tournament.
March runs a terrific charity organization called the Pay It Backward Foundation and he has been donating 100% of all his poker winnings to the organization. He took home the Guitar Trophy but Pay It Backward had another $44,851 added to its funds to help the underprivileged.
$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 4: 200/300 with a 300 ante
Day 1A Entries: 75
Players are back in their seats and everyone is chasing Fernando Rodriguez. He was the clear early leader after three levels, pushing his 30,000 starting stack up to 80,200 to take the lead.
Rodriguez already has one big score this series. He final tabled the $570 Eight-Handed tournament and finished fourth out of 106 entries to bank $4,474.
$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 3: 100/200 with a 200 ante
Day 1A Entries: 70
Level 3 is complete and Main Event players were sent on their first break of the day. We will take this opportunity to grab a first look at the bigger stacks in early play.
$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 3: 100/200 with a 200 ante
Day 1A Entries: 64
The entry count jumped another ten spots over the previous level including David DiBernardi back in the room, already a winner in the series.
We ran a $570 Freeze-Out to start the new week and DiBernardi was the last player standing after an outright win in Event 3 for $12,379. The win also brought a little Seminole Hard Rock Poker history, it was a sort of Triple Crown of SHR Poker. DiBernardi already had wins at SHR Hollywood (2017 Poker Showdown) and Seminole Coconut Creek (WSOPC ring last February). Now he owns one from SHR Tampa.
$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 2: 100/100 with a 100 ante
Day 1A Entries: 54
The early crowd today has a lot of familiar faces, some here with a direct buy-in and others via satellite. Yesterday’s qualifier put 15 players in this morning and their chips were in play from the start of the day.
Some of the regulars we found so far include Jeremy Becker, Anthony Dianaty, and Tom Nguyen.
$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 1: 100/100
Day 1A Entries: 32
After making sure everyone and everything was in its proper place, tournament staff put cards in the air for the 2019 Winter Poker Open Main Event. They will play the first three 40-minute levels before taking a break.
$1,650 Winter Poker Open Main Event
$500,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 1: 100/100
All the preliminaries events are complete and now it is time to get to down to the business of finding our 2019 Winter Poker Open Main Event Champion. It kicks off this morning with the first of three flights and the $1,650 buy-in tournament features a $500,000 guaranteed prize pool.
They will sit down to 30,000 huge stacks and the levels will last for 40 minutes each on Day 1, increasing to 60 on Day 2. Late registration is available until the start of Level 10 after the dinner break at ~6:30 pm. They will complete for 15 full levels and survivers will bag up and return for Day 2 on Sunday at 11 am.
It will be an exciting time in the Poker Room this weekend and cards fly at the top of the hour.