$5,250 SHRPO Championship
$3 Million Guaranteed | Payouts
Level 20: 8,000/16,000 with a 2,000 ante
Players Remaining: 30
Day 2 saw 266 players return in the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship, and after another ten levels of play the field was sliced all the way down the final 30. The top 111 players made the money, and we had three players fall simultaneously on the money bubble earlier today (including 2015 SHRPO Champion Omar Zazay), so they split the min-cash of $7,528.
The field played deep into the money tonight, and Aaron Mermelstein leads the pack at the end of play with a big stack of 2,706,000. Mermelstein came on strong late in the day when he eliminated Ashton Griffin in 45th place to grow his stack to 1.8 million. Mermelstein never looked back once he secured the chip lead, and he is the only player to bag up over 2 million. Here is a look at the top 10 chip counts at the end of play.
Aaron Mermelstein – 2,706,000
Adam Levy – 1,960,000
Yi Chi Li – 1,816,000
Matt Berkey – 1,795,000
Samuel Bernabeu – 1,285,000
Odie Dardon – 1,154,000
David Sands – 1,044,000
Glenn Becker – 1,029,000
Michael Aron – 1,000,000
Diana Shirey – 923,000
Top storylines to keep an eye on tomorrow include the quest of Joe Kuether to make his second final table of The Big 4 in this SHRPO Championship event. He already made the final table in the $1,100 event that will play out on Tuesday, so if he makes the final nine in this tournament life could get tricky for him in two days. Kuether bagged up 615,000 at the end of play.
Glenn Becker is the last player alive in the SHRPO Championship who can catch Nathan Papp for the SHRP Player of the Year award. Becker ended Day 2 with 1,029,000, and he will have some extra incentive to keep his deep run going on Monday.
Other big names still in the hunt to keep an eye on include David Diaz, Odie Dardon, Scott Clements, Shannon Shorr, Nicholas Palma, and Joel Harwood (Loni’s father).
Notables that cashed today included Christian Harder, Keven Stammen, Harrison Gimbel, Taylor Paur, Neil Blumenfield, Kane Kalas, John Gordon, John Hennigan, Kevin Saul, Jean Gaspard, Allen Bari, Asher Conniff, Paul Volpe, Jonathan Jaffe, Jason Brin, Kurt Jewell, Shaun Deeb, Ari Engel, Matt Waxman, Event 1 winner Nipun Java, and the final Seminole Hard Rock Poker team member standing – Chance Kornuth.
Here is the remaining prize pool up for grabs:
1st: $754,083
2nd: $528,322
3rd: $341,618
4th: $252,481
5th: $191,437
6th: $152,547
7th: $126,305
8th: $100,408
9th: $75,413
10th-12th: $61,303
13th-15th: $48,397
16th-18th: $40,094
19th-21st: $33,211
22nd-24th: $28,049
25th-27th: $22,972
28th-30th: $19,531
Day 3 begins on Monday at Noon ET, and the returning field will play down to the final table of nine no matter how long it takes. Catch all of the live updates, chip counts, photos, and videos right here from the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Live Updates team.