Event 14: Joseph Ritzie Comes Back to Close SHRPO

2017 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Hollywood, Florida
$150 No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$50,000 Guaranteed
Entries: 779
Prize Pool: $93,480
August 14-16, 2017

Joseph Ritzie, Event 14 Champion

The 2017 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open series closed down with one last, multi-day tournament that would finish the day after the Big 4. The $150 buy-in drew a mixed crowd of local regular and amateurs here to have a good time. After two starting flights and a long play down day, Cincinnati’s Joseph Ritzie locked up the last trophy of the series and took home $24,682 for the title.

The two starting flights combined to put 779 entries into the tournament to easily surpass its $50,000 guaranteed prize pool. The final tally created a prize pool worth $93,480 with the last 45 taking some money home.

Of those 779 entries, only 69 made it through to Day 2 with several local regulars looking to go deep including defending champion Cesar Fuentes, 2015 winner Yves Fequiere, and Francis Margaglione trying for his third SHRPO title in as many series.

The money bubble burst shortly after the first break and they quickly played down from 69 to the final table ten in a little more than four hours of play.

Fuentes and Margaglione made the final table but most of the chips belonged in the stacks of Gui Van and Adam Horowitz. Short stacked Errol Rosen hit the rail quickly in tenth place followed by Nachum Lumelski.

At that point, things began to slide for Horowitz as Van built a big lead. Michael Levy dropped in eighth place, Horowitz followed in seventh, and Michael Kopjanski and Hollander Preap were gone soon after.

Fuentes took a bad beat to Margaglione to exit in fourth place and we had seven players off the final table in less than two hours. During that time, Van’s stack held half of the chips in play with Margaglione his closest competitor. Ritzie was the short stack before he staged his comeback.

He found a huge double up through Van with threes beating jack-ten to get him back in the game and Ritzie drove the action from that point forward. Margaglione was in trouble when he put his stack in against Van’s dominating hand and dropped in third place.

The heads up match between Ritzie and Van was a quick affair and Ritzie was soon sitting for his winner’s photo.

It was a show of patience as he watched other players drop to the rail while others built up their stacks. Ritzie found his spot, picked up the chips, and came from behind to win the last trophy of the 2017 SHRPO series.

Final table results:

1st: Joseph Ritzie – $24,682
2nd: Gui Van – $14,489
3rd: Francis Margaglione – $9,395
4th: Cesar Fuentes – $6,544
5th: Hollander Preap – $4,721
6th: Michael Kopjanski – $3,786
7th: Adam Horowitz – $2,898
8th: Michael Levy – $2,057
9th: Nachum Lumelski – $1,496
10th: Errol Rosen – $1,122