$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 2: 100/200 with a 200 ante
Flight B Entries: 123

The early numbers look great for the second flight of Event 1 with more than 100 entries in the first level and it continued to climb with a steady line at the registration desk.

Nancy Birnbaum and Jacquelyn Scott are two of the more successful players in early action and they are sharing a table, separated only by the dealer.

Birnbaum owns three WSOP Circuit rings plus two runner-up finishes and two handfuls of final table appearances. Scott only has one tournament title to her credit, but it was a doozy. She won the WSOP Ladies Championship in the summer of 2015 for more than $150,000.

South Florida has some poker talent.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 1: 100/100

The May Deep Stack Poker Series is rolling into its first weekend which means it is time for the second flight of the $150,000 Guarantee opening event.

The $350 buy-in tournament drew 249 entries yesterday to put it nearly halfway to the guaranteed prize pool with two more flights to go. Only 28 made it through the initial session and we expect a few more later this evening.

Entrants sit down to 30,000 starting stacks and the tournament runs 40-minute levels on Day 1. Late registration and re-entries are available until the start of Day 2 on Sunday, so plenty of time to get to the poker room before Flight B is through after Level 15.

Cards are in the air and we’ll let know how it goes from start to finish.

• $150,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool
• Players begin with 30,000 in chips
• Day 1 levels last 40 minutes
• Levels 16-25 last 60 minutes; Levels 26+ last 90 minutes
• Late registration available until start of Day 2
• Single ante will be paid from the big blind for the entire table
• $1,650 Event 4 seat added to 1st place
• Final ten players receive $560 Event 3 seat
• Day 1 will end after Level 15 or Tournament Director discretion
• Event 1 Structure Sheet

Primary Event Schedule

11AM: Event 1B – $350 Deep Stack NLH (Re-Entry)

• $150,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool
• Players begin with 30,000 in chips
• Day 1 levels last 40 minutes
• Levels 16-25 last 60 minutes; Levels 26+ last 90 minutes
• Late registration available until start of Day 2
• Single ante will be paid from the big blind for the entire table
• $1,650 Event 4 seat added to 1st place
• Final ten players receive $560 Event 3 seat
• Day 1 will end after Level 15 or Tournament Director discretion
• Event 1 Structure Sheet

Secondary and Satellite Schedule

6PM: $140 Multi-Event Satellite (1-in-10)

• 4 packages guaranteed
• Package: $350 Event 1 seat; $560 Event 3 seat; $330 in cash
• Players begin with 8,000 in chips and 20-minute levels
• Late registration/re-entry available until start of Level 9
• This is a one-day tournament and plays until completion
• Satellite Structure Sheet

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Returning to Level 16: 3,000/6,000 with a 6,000 ante
Players Remaining: 28 of 249

Flight A: 249 Entries, 28 Advanced
Flight B: Friday at 11am
Flight C: Saturday at 11am
Day 2: Sunday at 12pm

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
End of Level 15: 3,000/5,000 with a 5,000 ante
Flight A Players Remaining: 28 of 249

It was a close race between the end of the level and the hard stop. They made it down to ten minutes remaining and tournament staff paused the clock and instructed dealers to deal four more hands.

Once the dust was settled, Michael Newman put the biggest stack in a bag for a Day 2 return on Sunday. His 503,000 is the leader among the 28 players still around and they will wait for Flight B and C survivors to join them.

Full chip counts to come when they are available.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 15: 3,000/5,000 with a 5,000 ante
Flight A Players Remaining: 38 of 249

Flight A moved into the last level of the evening and it’s a race over the next 40 minutes between the end of Level 15 and the 12% remaining hard stop. Two more players entered after the new level kicked off but we haven’t seen their entrance yet.

Sean Shah is having himself a nice evening. The late afternoon entrant is among the chip leaders with 365,000 in the late going.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 14: 2,000/4,000 with a 4,000 ante
Flight A Players Remaining: 40 of 246

SHRP regular Raminder Singh was one of the late players to hop in this evening’s flight. He jumped a few minutes before the last break and was trying to work his stack since then.

But it wasn’t meant to be for our eight-time tournament winner. He put his short stack in the middle with the board reading and he was called by a big stack.

“Did you flop a straight?” Singh asked his opponent.

He did not but his opponent was ahead with aces-up against Singh’s paired ace/open-ended straight draw . The river was the and Singh’s quick night was over.

Don’t feel too bad for him at the moment though. Singh went on a nice heater at the beginning of the month when he won back-to-back tournaments. He captured the Triple Stack event on May 6 and followed that up with a Big Stack victory on May 7.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 13: 2,000/3,000 with a 3,000 ante
Flight A Players Remaining: 46 of 243

The final break is complete and action is back underway with 46 players remaining and we’re probably looking at a hard stop with around 30 players remaining, depending on any late entries.

Jonah Miller is the new frontrunner and the only player over 300,000. That will be an average stack at the end of the day so we expect to see him have some late competition.

Top stacks and notables:

Jonah Miller – 327,000
Sean Shah – 272,000
Andrew Thompson – 268,000
Andre Rakusa – 247,000
Richard Zipes – 210,000
Seth Gilson – 188,000
Ariel Rosello – 182,000
Michael Newman – 144,000
Steven Karp – 142,000
Jason Young – 125,000
Michael Ortiz – 120,000

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 12: 1,500/2,500 with a 2,500 ante
Flight A Players Remaining: 57 of 239

Flight A players are on their final break of the day and tournament staff made an announcement before they left. They are scheduled to play 15 full levels but they will cut the day short if the field hits 12% before then.

We’ll take another opportunity to scope out the big stacks in the room and see who’s in position to bag the end-of-night lead.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 12: 1,500/2,500 with a 2,500 ante
Flight A Players Remaining: 74 of 235

The entry count is staying pretty stable at this point and it looks like we’ll be locked in right around 235 entries for the rest of the evening.

SHRP regular Ido Ashkenazi was close to being one of those forced to re-enter. He was all in with his short stack but was feeling pretty confident with aces versus queens.

Until he saw a queen in the window.

Luckily for Ashkenazi, the queen was followed by an ace to keep him in the game. He still has chips but he’s sitting on a starting stack late in the day.