2016 Rock ‘n’ Roll Poker Open
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino
Hollywood, FL
Event 1: $360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Entries: 5,018
Prize Pool: $1,505,400
November 16-21, 2016

(Hollywood, FL) — Rafael Reis is the champion of Event 1 at the 2016 Rock ‘n’ Roll Poker Open, outlasting an enormous field to win the top prize in a nine-way deal at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollwood. Reis, who was the commanding chip leader at the time of the chop, collected $155,642 and the second blue guitar pick trophy of his career.

“Enormous” might be a bit of an understatement for the record-setting field that came out for the series opener. This $360 re-entry attracted 5,018 total entries, setting a new high-water mark for a tournament field in the state of Florida. The previous record was set earlier this year at the Lucky Hearts Poker Open (4,075 entries), but this event smashed that attendance figure by nearly 1,000 entries and saw its prize pool top $1,500,000.

Reis is a 34-year-old professional poker player and entrepreneur originally from Curitiba, Brazil. He now makes his home in Kent, Washington, where he’s married and has two young children. Despite his geography and his commitments to family, he’s a frequent patron of the Seminole Hard Rock, a property in which he has found considerable success.

These huge-field events seem to suit Reis’ playing style perfectly. Two Rock ‘n’ Roll Poker Opens ago (2014), he won more than $90,000 and his first Seminole Hard Rock Poker trophy after topping a field of 1,250 entries in a $570 event. In April of last year, he finished sixth in another huge $570 re-entry (2,474 entries), earning a similar payout and what was, at the time, the second-largest result of his poker career. This win tops both of those paydays by a significant margin and Reis’ total career tournament earnings are now just shy of a half-million dollars, with the vast majority of that coming in Hollywood.

Reis entered Day 2 with an above-average stack of 178,000 chips, and he quickly moved his way to the very top of the leaderboard. He was the big stack when the bubble burst and one of the first players to cross the million-chip mark, ending the day as the chip leader with 35 players remaining.

Day 3 was more of the same for the eventual champion, who appeared to hold the chip lead wire to wire on the decisive day. By the time they reached the final table of nine, Reis had well in excess of 20 percent of the total chips in play, and his aggression to that point was rewarded with the lion’s share of the prize pool in the nine-way deal.

This event was held over the course of six days, with a total of eight starting flights feeding players into the combined Day 2. Pushing the tournament well past the guarantee and into the record books were Saturday’s Flight G and Flight H. The pair of start days combined to draw more than 2,000 entries and were the icing on the cake for the super-sized event.

Here was the flight-by-flight attendance breakdown:

Flight A: 403 Entries, 78 Advanced
Flight B: 443 Entries, 81 Advanced
Flight C: 409 Entries, 76 Advanced
Flight D: 457 Entries, 77 Advanced
Flight E: 647 Entries, 127 Advanced
Flight F: 656 Entries, 126 Advanced
Flight G: 994 Entries, 189 Advanced
Flight H: 1,009 Entries, 206 Advanced
Day 2: 960 Survivors, 35 Advanced
Day 3: Played to a winner

Final Table Results
1st: Rafael Reis – $155,642 + trophy
2nd: Rodrigo Diaz – $113,650
3rd: Allan Beiler – $105,096
4th: Michael Johnson – $97,164
5th: Alejandro Armas – $95,298
6th: Steve Cohen – $59,993
7th: Elizabeth Provan – $53,927
8th: Jack Rolnitzky – $53,460
9th: Michael Sanchez – $43,351

Full Event 1 Results

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 36: 200,000/400,000 with a 50,000 Ante
Players Remaining: 9 of 5,018

With the elimination of Claudemir Osorio in tenth place, the final nine players asked to pause the clock to discuss a deal. The chip counts were run and an agreement was eventually reached, with commanding chip leader Rafael Reis earning the top prize and the hardware.

Here are the final results of the deal:

1st: Rafael Reis – $155,642 + trophy
2nd: Rodrigo Diaz – $113,650
3rd: Allan Beiler – $105,096
4th: Michael Johnson – $97,164
5th: Alejandro Armas – $95,298
6th: Steve Cohen – $59,993
7th: Elizabeth Provan – $53,927
8th: Jack Rolnitzky – $53,460
9th: Michael Sanchez – $43,351

A more in-depth recap of Reis’ victory will be published shortly.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 36: 200,000/400,000 with a 50,000 Ante
Players Remaining: 9 of 5,018

Claudemir Osorio put his tournament life on the line at the live streamed final table with and Alejandro Armas had him at risk with .

Osorio caught a piece of the but Armas’ set was better. The turn came and Osorio was drawing dead to tenth place.

Alejandro Armas – 12,550,000 (31 bb)
Claudemir Osorio – Eliminated in 10th place ($11,592)

Download Complete RRPO Live Stream Schedule (PDF)

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 36: 200,000/400,000 with a 50,000 Ante
Players Remaining: 10 of 5,018

The remaining players have joined as one at the live streamed final table in the meeting room. We’ll keep an eye from afar but you can jump on SHRPO.com/live if you want to watch along.

Seat 1: Rafael Reis
Seat 2: Allan Bieler
Seat 3: Michael Johnson
Seat 4: Barbaro Diaz
Seat 5: Alejandro Armas
Seat 6: Michael Sanchez
Seat 7: Claudemir Osorio
Seat 8: Elizabeth Provan
Seat 9: Jack Rolnitzky
Seat 10: Steve Cohen

11th: Michael Amato – $11,592
12th: Devon Shalmi – $11,592
13th: Marc Duquette – $11,592
14th: Alvaro Jirau – $8,581
15th: Luis Carmona – $8,581
16th: Perry Shiao – $6,398
17th: William Underdown – $6,398
18th: Wally Maddah – $6,398

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 35: 150,000/300,000 with a 25,000 Ante
Players Remaining: 15 of 5,018

With the end of Level 34, the remaining players took a slightly extended break and we are moving Table 1 to the live stream table. Once action is back underway, you will be able to follow them on SHRPO.com/live.

Table 1
Seat 1: Claudemir Osorio – 7,900,000 (66 bb)
Seat 2: Marc Duquette – 2,075,000 (17 bb)
Seat 3: Alejandro Armas – 3,325,000 (28 bb)
Seat 4: Jack Rolintzky – 2,625,000 (22 bb)
Seat 5: Devon Shalmi – 8,550,000 (71 bb)
Seat 6: Rafael Reis – 15,400,000 (128 bb)
Seat 7: Elizabeth Provan – 6,550,000 (55 bb)
Seat 8: — Empty —
Seat 9: Luis Carmona – 3,750,000 (31 bb)

Table 2
Seat 1: Michael Amato – 5,700,000 (48 bb)
Seat 2: Allan Bieler – 10,000,000 (83 bb)
Seat 3: — Empty —
Seat 4: Michael Sanchez – 10,400,000 (87 bb)
Seat 5: — Empty —
Seat 6: Steven Cohen – 6,400,000 (53 bb)
Seat 7: Alvaro Jirau – 4,125,000 (34 bb)
Seat 8: Michael Johnson – 9,400,000 (78 bb)
Seat 9: Barbero Diaz – 4,400,000 (37 bb)

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 34: 125,000/250,000 with a 25,000 Ante
Players Remaining: 15 of 5,018

On the first hand after they broke Table 9, Seminole Hard Rock Tampa ambassador Wally Maddah was knocked out in 18th when his could not outrace pocket fives.

Three hands later, Michael Johnson snap/called the good after a four-bet shove from Perry Shiao. Johnson tabled to put the 2015 WSOP Monster Stack bracelet winner in trouble with . Shiao had a small sweat after the flop and called for a ten-ball.

No love on the turn or river to send him out in 16th place.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 34: 125,000/250,000 with a 25,000 Ante
Players Remaining: 18 of 5,018

The pace of play has been nearly impossible to track over the first 90 minutes with chips and cards and chairs flying. Players are not dropping in singles, rather each table has something going.

That’s how Event 1 came to reach the last two tables in less than two levels.

The reached 18 players remaining when Rafael called a three-bet shove from Chris Laieta with . Laieta needed help with then found it on the flop but his joy did not last long. Reis hit the turn and Laieta was eliminated after the river.

Tournament staff paused the clock to break Table 9.

19th: Chris Laieta – $5,118
20th: Damjan Radanov – $5,118
21st: Edward McNamara – $5,118
22nd: Reynaldo Baro – $5,118
23rd: Robert Zarzycki – $5,118
24th: Jonathan Sanchez – $5,118
25th: JD Jiang – $5,118
26th: Dustin Murphy – $5,118
27th: Eric Becks – $5,118

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 33: 100,000/200,000 with a 25,000 Ante
Players Remaining: 26 of 5,018

Table 1
Seat 1: Chris Laieta
Seat 2: Jonathan Sanchez
Seat 3: –Empty–
Seat 4: JD Jiang
Seat 5: Devon Shalmi
Seat 6: Damian Radanov
Seat 7: Elizabeth Provan
Seat 8: William Underdown
Seat 9: Reynaldo Baro

Table 2
Seat 1: Michael Amato
Seat 2: Allan Bieler
Seat 3: Perry Shiao
Seat 4: Michael Sanchez
Seat 5: Ted McNamara
Seat 6: Rafael Reis
Seat 7: Alvaro Jirau
Seat 8: Robert Zarzycki
Seat 9: Barbaro Diaz

Table 9
Seat 1: Steven Cohen
Seat 2: Alejandro Armas
Seat 3: Michael Johnson
Seat 4: Narimaan Ahmadi
Seat 5: Dustin Murphy
Seat 6: Jack Rolnitzky
Seat 7: Luis Yepez
Seat 8: Wally Maddah
Seat 9: Marc Duquette

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 31: 75,000/150,000 with a 25,000 Ante
Players Remaining: 27 of 5,018

After a quick pause to race off the 5K chips, the pace sped right until we were suddenly staring at the three-table redraw. With 29 players remaining, Adam Barclay was all-in and in trouble with against Michael Johnson’s .

It was a quick end for Barclay in 29th as the board ran to send him to the rail.

At the same time on Table 2, Alexksandr Gorelik was at risk with his own and needed to hit his ace against . The dealer spread for another fast elimination to put the field down to 27 players.

Tournament staff paused the clock to redraw seats for the last three tables.

28th: Aleksandr Gorelik – $4,065
29th: Adam Barclay – $4,065
30th: Paul Ardaji – $4,065
31st: Alan Rosenbaum – $4,065
32nd: Glen Cressman – $4,065
33rd: Narimaan Ahmadi – $4,065
34th: Raul Jiminez Diaz – $4,065
35th: Donald Maloney – $4,065