$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry) Level 9: 400/800 with a 100 ante Flight F Players Remaining: 70 of 125
Registration has closed on Event 7 and the final flight drew 125 entries. The six starting flights combined for 624 entries to push the prize pool over $300,000.
The official prize pool and payout information will be posted as soon as it is available.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry) Level 8: 300/600 with a 75 ante Flight F Entries: 120
Flight F is in the final level with open registration for Event 7 and we expect to see the number run up a bit more before closing in less than 30 minutes.
Brandon Byars is the early leader in the big field after running his 20,000 starting stack over 100,000 in the first few hours. After a rough run the last few days, Byars could do with some run-good.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry) Level 7: 250/500 with a 75 ante Flight F Entries: 110
The 2016 Winter Poker Open welcomed Seminole Hard Rock Tampa team member John Racener to the series this evening. He’s making his first appearance of the series as the Event 7 continues to climb higher.
Racener is best known for a runner-up finish in the 2010 WSOP Main Event but the Florida pro already owned a WSOP Circuit Main Event win before that summer. He’s looking to join a fellow 2010 WSOP November Niner in Day 2 after John Dolan bagged up yesterday.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry) Level 6: 200/400 with a 50 ante Flight F Entries: 104
Rob Manjura knows about conquering big, multi-day fields here in the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa poker room. He won the opening event of the 2016 WPO series that was 721-entries strong. That was Manjura’s second Hard Rock guitar trophy (and third win here total) but he had to fire here again after a cooler in Flight E.
He was only a few hands away from bagging up a Day 2 stack but his queens ran smack into flight leader Onder Ekinci’s pocket aces. Manjura is back this evening, in nearly the same seat as earlier, but he has to deal with a tough draw against Ryan Dunn, Brandon Byars, and 2015 WPO winner John Pappas.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry) Level 5: 150/300 with a 50 ante Flight F Entries: 101
With nearly two hours left to get in the game, the $200,000 guaranteed prize pool in Event 7 has climbed to $300,000 with registration/re-entry open until 10:30pm. There will be some nice money up top sometime tomorrow evening.
They are having a lot of fun in the back for of the room and naturally AJ “Doc” Santos is in the middle of it. He has last year’s SHRP Player of the Year Ory Hen to his right with Daiane Mendes and Manny Minaya to his left. All three have had success here and enjoying their Saturday evening.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry) Level 5: 150/300 with a 50 ante Flight F Entries: 92
Flight F players are returning to their seats after the first break and they are within shouting distance of hitting creating a $300,000 prize pool out of this $200,000 Guarantee.
Cheri Beatty is trying for his second big run of the series. The Tampa regular started the 2016 WPO off well when she final tabled the Ladies Event last week but was unlucky to finish in fourth place.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry) Level 3: 75/150 with a 25 ante Flight F Entries: 76
Flight E has wrapped up but Flight F is still its infancy on the far side of the poker room. We have 76 entries in the game after the first hour and only 25 away from running the $200,000 guaranteed prize pool up to $300,000.
Alex Ivan is back with us this evening trying to build a bag for tomorrow. He already has success this series when he finished second in the Pot Limit Hold’em event a few days ago.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry) Level 14: 1,200/2,400 with a 400 ante Flight E Players Remaining: 30 of 161
The clock is paused with 10 minutes remaining in Level 14 and tournament staff is wrapping Flight E action. Action began at 11am with a field of 161 entries and the clock currently shows 30 remaining. Onder Ekinci and his 300,000 chips will go down as the chip leader following a double knockout late, but Jeff Boulais and Steve Pellingra will bag monsters as well.
Boulais topped the counts following the second break while Pellingra ran into his stack after coming out on the winning end of a quads versus fullhouse battle. Both players claim over 250,000 chips and will be heading to Day 2 with a top 10 stacks — at least for now.
A ton of notables are likely to advance from the Flight E field including reigning defending Winter Poker Open Championship winner John Templeton, John Holley, Vitor Coelho, Charlemagne Benjamin and David Tuthill.
Complete chip counts will be posted within the hour.
$570 Deep Stack NL Hold’em (Re-Entry) Level 14: 1,200/2,400 with a 400 ante Flight E Players Remaining: 30 of 161
With only a few minutes left in the night, Onder Ekinci had all his chips in the middle and in danger of going out. He doubled up in that hand with versus the of Scott Efron and didn’t stop there.
On one of the last hands of the evening, he found with both Dmitry Agrachov and Event 1 champ Rob Manjura all-in. It was a cooler for Manjura with and Agrachov was crushed with . The board ran out to send the double KO/Flight E chip leading pot to Ekinci.