$1,650 Buy-In Championship No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Level 5: Blinds 150/300/25 ante
Entries: 102

There’s always debate on who should be designated the “defending champion.” Based on the calendar, Stephen Diamantas (Tampa, FL) is the defending champ after winning this Championship Event in December 2013.

But Timothy “TK” Miles (Tallahassee, FL) can stake a claim as a defending champion as he’s the most recent winner after shipping the June Championship Event.

“It’s a good room, a good time,” says Miles who’s a few seats away from Diamantas, but on a different table. “I like it here.”

Miles is a big Florida State football fan and is extremely confident in his poker game and in the Seminoles repeating as national champions.

“I need to do win this,” says Miles, “we’re both going to do it,” he says about winning back-to-back titles.

Miles won the June Championship for $295,000 in a 346 entry field ($3,500 buy-in), while Diamantas earned $122,000 against 301 entries ($1,650 buy-in) last December.

$1,650 Buy-In Championship No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Level 4 Complete; Next Blinds: 150/300/25 ante
Entries: 99

As players head to break, it looks like Director of Poker Tommy Bates is handing off today’s heavy lifting to Tournament Director Byron Rodriguez.

Especially after some of the pictures we captured yesterday.

$1,650 Buy-In Championship No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Level 4: Blinds 100/200/25 ante
Entries: 92

Allen Kessler and David Levi have combined for dozens of wins and each have earned millions of dollars in their tournament careers. And they both made it a point to travel from Las Vegas to play in the Winter Poker Open Championship Event.

“I have friends in Florida and wanted to play one more event before the end of the year, so this is it,” says Levi, who just won a big pot to take his stack to 80k.

“It’s a good structure, really good structure,” says Kessler, who’s been a Seminole Hard Rock Tampa supporter on Twitter.

@JeremyJagoda @SHRTPoker yes I’m flying all the way from vegas to play it. Great event, structure and staff.

— Allen Kessler (@AllenKessler) December 17, 2014

Kessler had success here last year with a 6th place finish for $19,000.

“It’s a nice room, I’m glad to be here,” Kessler says adding, “they don’t skip any levels. The structure is the main thing.”

Levi’s big hand today comes against Carlo Rodriguez (Weston, FL) with Levi hitting bottom set against Rodriguez’s top two pairs on a J-9-3 flop.  They’re all in on the turn and Rodriguez ships his 30k starting stack when he doesn’t boat up.

“There’s definitely good value,” says Levi. “It’s a nice room, I’m glad to be here. I hope they’ll have a lot more of these in the future.”

Tale of the Tape

Levi vs Kessler

*Recorded Tournament Results from TheHendonMob.com

$1,650 Buy-In Championship No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Level 3: Blinds 100/200
Entries: 84

“That’s a fun table to cover,” says Stephen Diamantas (Tampa, FL), who is glad he’s simply a Table 9 spectator.

The table features two Las Vegas pros in Allen Kessler and David Levi. The two each have more than $3 million in career recorded tournament earnings and 43 combined wins.

Also on the table is Timothy “TK” Miles (Tallahassee, FL) who won the Championship Event here in June for nearly $300,000.

Diamantas, the 2013 winner of this event, has a good view of the action from his seat on Table 8. He busted late last night, tweeting this summary of his title defense to date:

Made a horrible call getting caught up in trying to bag a big stack.Then added to my mistake by not valuing my remaining chips. Bring on 1C

— Stephen Diamantas (@SDiamantas) December 20, 2014

$1,650 Buy-In Championship No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Level 2: Blinds 75/150
Entries: 75

Tampa bound for Day 1C of the @SHRTPoker #winterpokeropen Championship. Hope I can make it firing one bullet like @Bearw8.

— Rob Manjura (@RManjura) December 20, 2014

$1,650 Buy-In Championship No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Level 1 Blinds 50/100

It’s a picture perfect day for the Day 1C of Championship Event, the last chance to enter this $300,0000 Guaranteed prize pool tournament.

Players are taking their seats and waiting for the official “shuffle up and deal.”

Starting stacks are 30k  and Day 1 levels are 45 minutes, with time to 60 minutes on Day 2. Registration and re-entry is open until the start of Level 9, approximately 6:30 pm.

Flight B big stack Matt Rose is the overwhelming chip leader with 484k (242 bb).  44 players remain from the first two flights.

Overall Chip Leaers

Matt Rose 483,700
Michael Laake 372,900
David DiBernardi 255,400
Robert Gill 236,900
Tony Tran 215,000

Championship Schedule

Day 1A: 75 Entries/20 Players Remaining
Day 1B: 90 Entries/24 Players Remaining
Day 1C: Starts in Minutes
Day 2: 12 pm Sunday

Totals: 165 Entries/44 Players Remaining
113k Avg (57 bb)
Day 2 Blinds: 1k/2k/200 ante

$1,650 Buy-In Championship No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

$1,650 Buy-In Championship No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

End of Level 12: Blinds 800/1,600/200 ante

Reigning Seminole Hard Rock Poker Player of the year Angel Vu busted out before the end of the night and she was the last woman remaining in this flight.

Out of 90 entries, only 24 survived to bag up chips.  Matt Rose went on a heater the last couple of levels to take the overall chip lead, bagging 483,700.

Chip counts:

Matt Rose 483,700
David DiBernardi 255,400
William Smith 193,500
Tom Nguyen 169,200
Sterling Savill 151,900
Chris Conrad 145,000
Josias Santos 126,600
Rick Clayton 107,100
Brett Streicher 97,300
Giancarlo DiSalvo 91,400
Jeffrey Gilbert 85,300
Barry Wiedemann 83,600
Andrew Whitaker 83,500
Adam Mouyal 83,200
Darryll Fish 73,800
Mike Raimon 73,100
Phil Wasserman 67,600
Santana Noronha 63,100
Greg Jennings 56,600
Mansoor Kader 55,500
Alexandru Ivan 45,000
Robert LeBeau 43,600
Ross Fischer 34,600
Peter Williams 28,100

$1,650 Buy-In Championship No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Level 12: Blinds 800/1,600/200 ante

On the flop reading Joe Boulais got his chips in the middle against David DiBernardi.

Joe’s pocket Kings had been out-flopped by David’s pocket 7s.  The last two came and were no help to Joe, who reported to the rail during the last level of play.

Only 27 players remain as they approach the ‘bag & tag’ at the end of level 12.  Average stack is 100k.