2018 Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open 
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino 
Hollywood, Florida
Event 16
$5,000 No-Limit Hold’em      
Entries: 95
Prize Pool: $451,250  
November 26, 2018 

If David Peters wasn’t already one of the best no-limit hold’em tournament players on the planet, there might be some credence to the theory that the shirt that he wore on Monday is his lucky shirt.

For the second consecutive year, the Ohio native won the Rock N’ Roll Poker Open’s $5,000 no-limit hold’em event. Last year, he defeated Scott Wright heads-up to take down the title and this year, he defeated a 95-entry field and bested Guillaume Diaz to earn the $143,159 and his second consecutive trophy in this event.

“Isn’t that the same shirt you wore last year?!” asked Peters’ girlfriend after the final card was dealt. “Yeah, it is. I bought you that shirt.”

Peters smiled and acknowledged how crazy it was for him to win the event for the second year in a row.

“It’s kind of crazy,” he said. “It was a fun tournament. I’m wearing the same sweatshirt and everything. Things went pretty well at the final table early on. Then I lost a bunch of chips and I battled back and it worked out.”

Peters has north of $29 million in career tournament earnings and is always in the discussion for ‘Best no-limit hold’em player in the world.’

His skill was on display for the entirety of the tournament, but was magnified in a hand against World Series of Poker bracelet winner Will Givens. Givens raised from under the gun and went bet, bet, jam on an runout.

Peters check-called down from the big blind with and doubled up against Givens’ . The pot gave him about a third of the chips in play eight-handed and left Givens with just a few big blinds. He was eliminated in eighth-place on the very next hand.

“I felt that there was a lot of small pairs, a lot of low suited connectors, queen-jack, jack-ten suited type hands that would keep barreling,” said Peters about his call on the turn.

The river card allowed Peters to piece together the rest of the hand.

“I was blocking the nut flush and the ace, jack and nine are all out there, so there aren’t too many combos of flushes,” said Peters about the most infamous hand of the final table. “I don’t think he’d bet that sizing on the flop with top set, I block queen-ten suited. I don’t think he’d immediately go all in with two pair or a set or hands like that. I thought there were a lot of hands like he had that are trying to blow me off a nine. I have a lot of weakish ace-x type hands that are obligated to call the turn. So I felt he was trying to blow me off a lot of those hands. So I called. It worked out.”

The $5,000 buy-in is a little smaller than what Peters is used to playing. He’s one of the elite players that participates regularly in $25,000 buy-ins and up. He’s got three seven-figure scores in the last month in those type of events.

In some of the smaller events, seeing Peters call down in that spot may make some less experienced players shy away from playing pots with him. This final table featured two bracelet winners, an EPT champion and a team PokerStars pro.

Peters didn’t think anybody at this final table would be intimidated in the slightest.

“I guess sometimes maybe some guys might not be trying to play too many pots with me or might avoid marginal situations,” said Peters. “So I can sometimes take advantage of that. On the flip side, you have some guys that are ready to battle. I don’t think any of these guys were scared or anything like that.”

The 95-entry field paid out the top 12 spots and here are the results:

1st: David Peters – $143,159
2nd: Guillaume Diaz – $85,738
3rd: Alexander Haber – $54,150
4th: Joey Weissman – $34,972
5th: Jake Schwartz – $27,075
6th: Stanley Lee – $21,434
7th: Jeff Gross – $18,050
8th: Will Givens – $15,794
9th: Chad Eveslage – $14,318
10th: Mykel Conroe – $13,086
11th: Paul Fisher – $12,184
12th: Joe McKeehen – $11,190