2018 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Hollywood, Florida
Event #1
$570 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$1,000,000 Guarantee
Entries: 3,064
Prize Pool: $1,532,000
August 2-6, 2018
The 2018 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open began with a big bang and the first tournament of the series kept the Hard Rock Event Center busy. The $570 buy-in, multi-day tournament cruised past its $1,000,000 Guarantee and it was Matt Edge walking away with the biggest piece of the prize pool after an extra day of play.
Edge had to endure some tough situations throughout the tournament but held on, pushed his stack back up, and took home nearly $200,000 in a three-way deal.
“Day 1 was rough. I was down to 10K early,” Edge said. “But I played steady and progressed through the day and was able to bag up a top ten stack at the end of the day.”
The tournament drew 3,064 entries over six starting flights to put more than $1,500,000 in the prize pool. The last 300 players were set to take home some of that money with 477 players surviving into Day 2.
The money bubble hit quickly after less than two hours on the second day. There was no need for the hand-for-hand process as two players went out to leave 300 players looking to move up over the course of the day.
There were ten players remaining when Edge had his pocket kings run into the pocket aces of Jeffrey Trudeau on the very last hand of the evening. The ten players bagged up at 3am and returned on Monday to play out the final table.
“On Day 2 there were a lot of tough players and I did lose quite a bit,” Edge said about his deep run. “Then I lost half of my stack running kings into aces on the last hand of the day.”
Edge had to dodge a bad beat at the hands of Tom Nguyen, swapped the lead several times with Noam Muallem and John Miller throughout the day but took the lead for good as the table began playing short-handed. Edge knocked out Trudeau when he flopped a set of jacks against pocket kings to take out a tough opponent.
“That was pretty big,” Edge commented about his hand versus Trudeau. “Other than that, the other hands were pretty standard.”
Edge knocked Andre Rakusa out in fourth place and the last three players quickly agreed on a deal to divide the remaining prize pool. Shorter stacked Jay Romano earned $159,813 in the deal followed by John Miller with $191,788.
Edge collected $196,150 for his SHRPO Event 1 title for the biggest cash of his career. He came to Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood to play some cash games and enter this tournament. Edge was scheduled to fly back to North Carolina but thinks he will now stick around the play the $3 Million Guarantee SHRPO Championship starting later this week.
Congratulations to all who cashed and thanks to our players for the fantastic turnout to start the series.
Final table results:
1st: Matt Edge – $196,150 + Trophy *
2nd: John Miller – $191,788 *
3rd: Jay Romano – $159,813 *
4th: Andre Rakusa – $94,601
5th: Noam Muallem – $76,983
6th: Tom Nguyen – $60,514
7th: Don Vu – $44,428
8th: Jeffrey Trudeau – $29,874
9th: Domenico Albano – $21,448
10th: Ido Ashkenazi – $13,788
* – denotes three-way deal
