$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.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 11: 1,000/2,000 with a 2,000 ante
Flight A Entries: 235

The Flight A field is slowly making its way through the latter parts of the day with few players registering and more dropping out. Those going out now seem to be waiting until tomorrow to jump back in. Chris Nomikos and the previously mentioned Wally Maddah were to of the more recent knockouts.

Michael Ortiz is cruising right along though. He’s won these big, multi-day events before including a $1 Million GTD event in both the 2014 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown and 2015 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open, each for a six-digit payout.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 10: 1,000/1,500 with a 1,500 ante
Flight A Entries: 232

Players returned from their dinner break and cards started flying once again. The tournament picked up four new entries during that time including SHRP favorite and Tampa regular Wally Maddah.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 9: 600/1,200 with a 1,200 ante
Flight A Entries: 228

There are roughly 110 players remaining and they are enjoying a 40-minute respite from the poker room. They’ll return to play six more levels before bagging up their chips.

Andre Rakusa continued to have a nice run after the last break and moved his stack up to 199,000. But they are all chasing Richard Zipes at 205,000 and it looks like a lot of that came from previous big stack Seth Gilson.

Zipes came real close to a big win in 2015 when he finished second in the 2,500-entry Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown $570 Deep Stack tournament for more than $100,000.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 9: 600/1,200 with a 1,200 ante
Flight A Entries: 228

The entry pace slowed a bit as they went into Level 9 as the 228 is still on pace to top last year’s count with two more flights to go.

Two recent entries are two of the toughest. Sean Shah owns a Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown trophy from last year and a Coco Poker Showdown victory along with both a Friday Special and Saturday Deep Stack special title.

Steven Karp does not own a SHRP trophy with three runner-up finishes to get close. But he does own some jewelry for his WSOP Circuit win in 2014.

Flight A players will run out the clock on Level 9 and take a 40-minute dinner break.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 8: 500/1,000 with a 1,000 ante
Flight A Entries: 220

We had a few more familiar faces jump into Flight A and we found three with a little success in their career.

Michael Newman already had ten SHRP victories to his credit, including three majors, before he took a big jump by winning the 2017 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open” Championship in November for nearly $350,000.

Dimitry Agrachov won our Tuesday Night Special event last summer along with several deep runs through the years. He also owns a title from the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Winter Poker Open at our sister property on the west coast of the state.

Jason Young is still waiting for his first SHRP tournament win after migrating from the frigid Northeast. But he owns a WSOP bracelet so we guess he’s okay with that.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 7: 400/800 with a 800 ante
Flight A Entries: 208

Flight A players finished up their break away from the tables and cards went back in the air. They will play three more levels before going on a 40-minute dinner break.

Bill Farnan, the reigning Fun in the Sun Main Event champ, is your new chip leader and it’s not even close. He sits with 192,000 and his closest competitors are Andre Rakusa with 147,000 and Seth Gilson with 143,000.

There’s still plenty of time to catch Farnan and he’ll have to keep moving higher if he wants to hold the lead until the end of the night.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 6: 300/600 with a 600 ante
Flight A Entries: 204

Level 6 came to an end and player are taking their second break of the day. The count topped 200 entries and it is still climbing, even during break.

We will take another chance to walk the empty tables to update our chip leaders.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 6: 300/600 with a 600 ante
Flight A Entries: 197

It’s beginning to look like Flight A is going to eclipse the numbers from last year for a great start to the series. The 2017 May Deep Stack Poker Series drew 254 entries for Flight A of Event 1 and the 197 we have so far is a fair pace to get past it before they end their day near 11pm this evening.

We continue to find our friends and regulars taking part in the Thursday session including two-time SHRP winner Chris Nomikos. The poker room favorite is shooting for his first series win to go with his two Poker Room recurring tournaments on the monthly schedule.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 5: 300/500 with a 500 ante
Flight A Entries: 187

Steven Bennett is a regular force in most of our big tournaments and the SHRP regular picked up a huge score last month. The opening event of the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown drew more than 3,000 entries and Bennett took top honors after a four-way deal. Bennett earned $186,000 for the win. It was his sixth SHRP title and second SHRP major trophy.

He’s back in the poker room going for number seven.