Primary Event Schedule

11AM: Event 2 Day 1B – $400 No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

• $100,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool
• Players begin with 20,000 in chips and 30-minute levels
• Late registration available until the start of Level 3
• Re-entry available until the start of Level 5
• Day 1 will end at 10% of the field or Tournament Director discretion
• Event 2 Structure Sheet

Secondary and Satellite Schedule

9AM: $80 Event 2 Satellite (Re-Entry)

• Players begin with 10,000 in chips and 15-minute levels
• Late registration/re-entry available until start of Level 6
• Winner will be entered into the first available flight and chips will be in play when tournament starts
• Structure Sheet

$400 No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$100,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 15:  2,000/4,000 with a 4,000 ante
Players Remaining:  21 of 203

Flight A:  203 Entries; 21 Advanced
Flight B:  Friday at 11am
Flight C: Saturday at 11am
Day 2:  Sunday at noon

$400 No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$100,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 15:  2,000/4,000 with a 4,000 ante
Players Remaining:  21 of 203

Five minutes into Level 15, Flight A reached 22 players and tournament staff put the field into hand-for-hand mode. It only took two rounds to get there and the last 21 players are now in the money and advancing to Day 2 on Sunday at noon.

Bryce McVay took the lead in the middle of the day and it held the rest of the way despite a charge from AJ Kelsall. McVay put 506,000 in his bag while Kelsall was second with 448,000.

Other notable big bags include Brian Walsingham (366,000), Jonmikel MacNichols (364,000), Theirry Shea Quintin (286,000), Engelbenth Varela (262,000), Rafael Reis (238,000), and Vascal Chubec (226,000).

Tournament staff are compiling the full list of chip counts and we will post them as soon as they are available.

$400 No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$100,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 13:  1,000/3,000 with a 3,000 ante
Players Remaining:  34 of 203

Players returned from what is most likely their last break of the day with 34 players remaining and 21 advancing. It would remarkable if 22 of these players made it through four more levels. They will pause the action with 22 players remaining to go into hand-for-hand mode then bag up chips after losing one player.

Bryce McVay was the big stack at the last break and he’s still up there with 289,000. He is looking for another Tampa title to go with the three he already owns including a 2016 WPO guitar trophy. In non-Tampa news, McVay had back-to-back deep runs in the 2018 and 2019 WSOP Main Event with more than $100K in cash between the two.

$400 No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$100,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 12:  1,000/2,000 with a 2,000 ante
Players Remaining:  42 of 203

Level 12 rolled around and tournament staff broke another table to get the field to 42. Six tables with half of these players advancing to Day 2 on Sunday and the other half settling for another shot on Friday and/or Saturday.

They will play out this level, take a break, and should hit the cutoff before another one hits the clock.

$400 No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$100,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 11:  1,000/1,500 with a 1,500 ante
Players Remaining:  49 of 203

Flight A came back from the first break with 70 players remaining and they’ve dropped nearly half of that in the first two levels back. They are still quite a bit away from getting to the magic number of 21 to end the day but it’s getting close enough to see.

AJ Kelsall is back in town and playing his first event of the series. The poker pro has banked a lot of big wins including our $1,650 Winter Poker Open Championship back in 2016. He owns three WSOP Circuit rings but made his biggest WSOP score in September when he won the WSOP.com Global Casino Championship (an online version of the cancelled live event).

$400 No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$100,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 10:  500/1,500 with a 1,500 ante
Players Remaining:  63 of 203

Taking a walk around the room, we found Anthony Astarita in rough shape with his last bit of chips. He had his short stack in the middle with against and needing a lot of help.

The flop did nothing for him and he stood up from his seat after the turn. The river paired his seven and he sat right back down to stack up to ~30,000.

Astarita was a regular in the poker room for a few years then really became known when he captured the WPTDeepStacks Tampa title in 2016 for a $131K score.

$400 No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$100,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 9:  500/1,000 with a 1,000 ante
Players Remaining:  70 of 203

Flight A players are back from their second break of the day with 70 remaining. They still have a lot of work ahead of them to get down to 21 players but there are a few making a push including Dave Meagher.

He’s up to 135,500 coming back which is good enough for the second biggest in the room. The top stack is 175,500 but that seat remains unoccupied well after the break. We will track them down to find out who had a walking stack to extend their break.

$400 No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$100,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 7:  300/600 with a 600 ante
Players Remaining:  98 of 203

“Familiar faces” has a different feel in times like this, the Safe + Sound mask requirements means there isn’t too much of a face to be seen. But even masked up, it’s still easy to pick out some of our favorite regulars.

Jacob Naumann is back in the room trying for another Tampa title. He already has two (plus one in Hollywood) with his most recent coming with a $14K score during last year’s Winter Poker Open. Jeff Morzella also has two Tampa wins and he wouldn’t mind taking home another guitar trophy.

$400 No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$100,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 5:  200/400 with a 400 ante
Players Remaining:  140 of 203

Registration closed on the first flight of Event 2 and it continued the trend from yesterday with another great turnout. Flight A of the $100,000 guarantee tournament drew 203 entries to put $66,990 towards the prize pool with two more big weekend flights to go.

This one is going to be huge.

Flight A will continue to play throughout the day into the evening and until only 21 players remain. Those players will bag up their chips for a Day 2 return on Sunday already in the money coming back.