$1,650 Winter Poker Open Championship (Re-Entry)
Start of Level 9: 400/800/100 Ante

Players still have a few minutes left to relax on their dinner break before they return to grind it down to the end of the day.

Maroun Akiki is the clear leader after eight levels with Brandon Byars joining him over the 100K mark. There are still plenty of tough spots in the tournament, we expect to see a lot of action over the last six levels.

Notable counts:

Maroun Akiki – 160,000 (200 bb)
Brandon Byars – 111,200 (139 bb)
Jerry Silva – 90,500 (113 bb)
Michael Newman – 89,000 (111 bb)
Sheddy Siddiqui – 78,900 (99 bb)
Tony March – 76,000 (95 bb)
Raymond Ruszkowski – 76,000 (95 bb)
Ory Hen – 74,400 (93 bb)
Cory Waaland – 66,500 (83 bb)
Ryan Dunn – 46,600 (58 bb)
Sean Shah – 38,200 (48 bb)
Peter Vitantonio – 34,500 (43 bb)
AJ Kelsall – 34,000 (43 bb)
Jeffrey Trudeau Jr. – 22,500 (28 bb)
Kane Kalas – 8,200 (10 bb)

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Championship (Re-Entry)
End of Level 8: 300/600/75 Ante

The remaining players are on a 45-minute dinner break. Cards go back in the air at 6:25 p.m. ET. Registration closes when play resumes.

Notable chip stacks will be posted shortly.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 8: 300/600/75 Ante

Flight A is ten minutes away from hitting the dinner break with 104 entrants showing up so far. Two of those entries belong to Steven Bennett and he’ll need a third if he wants to win the Championship. We caught him walking away from the tournament area with no chips in his former seat next to Jerry Silva.

Players are heading out a steady clip and we’re under 70 players with less than an hour to jump in.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 8: 300/600/75 Ante

We had to do a double take walking by Table 47, Seat 6.

“I bet you thought I busted,” Steven Bennett laughed.

Turns out, he did. As we reported earlier, Bennett hit the rail at the hands of tablemate Jerry Silva. As the structure permits, Bennett rebought, played a few hands at a new table, then lo and behold, was moved to the exact same seat he previously occupied.

“I have a feel things guy’s going to bust me twice,” Bennett said pointing to Silva.

Maybe so, but it hasn’t happened as of yet. Bennett’s stack totals 28,000.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 7: 250/500/75 Ante

Brandon Byars is one of our 100+ entrants in the Championship today and looking to close out a successful series. He made back-to-back final tables in Events 3 and 4 but Byars biggest result came a few weeks ago with a deep run in the Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘n’ Roll Poker Open”.

He’s been camped out next to Tony March all day but he’s doing well  for being out of position on the big stack. Byars has run his 30,000 starting stack near 85,000 in Level 7.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 7: 250/500/50 Ante

Steven Bennett is the most recent preliminary event winner to hit the rail. We found Bennett all in from middle position on a board. An early-position player had bet 5,400 and Bennett’s shove was for 14,225. Jerry Silva called in the position and the early-position player folded. Bennett casually flipped over for top pair. Silva was best with and nothing changed on the turn or the river.

With that, Bennett busted joining fellow Winter Poker Open prelim winner Dean Morris on the rail.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 7: 250/500/50 Ante

@SHRTPoker @Sheddy88 We will be expecting @SHRTampa Ambassadors @racener @Justin_Zaki @wallymystar to be here tomorrow representing Tampa

— Tommy Bates (@HardRockTommy) December 17, 2015

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 7: 250/500/50 Ante

While it’s Sean Shah who leads following the day’s third break, there are plenty of other players making their way up the leaderboard. Most notably, Jerry Silva sits second in the counts with 85,500.

Here’s a look at some of the big stacks as Level 7 is freshly underway:

• Sean Shah – 92,000
• Jerry Silva – 85,500
• Dimitry Agrachov – 80,500
• Dean Dowda – 77,000

Only a handful of players have hit the rail thus far, one of whom is Event 9 winner Dean Morris.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 7: 250/500/75 Ante

While Championship players were on their third break of the day, the entrant count clicked into triple-digit territory for a nice, big, round number.

The 100 entrants in the Championship so far get us halfway to the $300,000 guaranteed prize pool with two and a half hours to register today, then one more flight Friday and Saturday each.

It all but locks up a really big number by the time registration is completely closed for the Championship and we should close on $500,000 before it’s done.

$1,650 Winter Poker Open Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 6: 200/400/50 Ante

If you took a stroll by Table 45 it would be hard not to notice the stack of Sean Shah. The local pro claims a pile of chips and is flirting with the 100,000 mark here toward the end of Level 6.

According to Shah, he held and opened the button. The small blind raised and Shah called. They saw a flop of , two clubs. The small blind lead and Shah raised. The small blind three-bet and Shah jammed. The small blind called and flipped over aces. They were best with a set versus Shah’s flush draw. Shah went to hit his flush and take a pot worth more than 90,000.

He now claims 92,050 chips.