2017 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Hollywood, FL
Event 9
$570 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Entries: 2,923
Prize Pool: $1,461,500
March 23 – 27, 2017
Event 9 was the first tournament on the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown schedule with a guaranteed seven-digit gprize pool and they blasted past that mark. The tournament drew 2,923 entries to create a prize pool of $1,461,500 and it was Vittorio Maraone walking away with the title plus $212,532.
The tournament featured six starting flights over three days with a $1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool. The field hit the magic number early Saturday morning and they went on to create the huge prize pool by the time registration closed that evening. The last 250 players would take home some of that money on Sunday and the last three players would earn more than $100,000.
Plenty of top, local players made their way to the ballroom to participate including Michael “The Grinder”Mizrachi, Olivier Busquet, Aaron Massey, Alex Rocha and Asher Conniff along with Seminole Hard Rock Poker team members Darryll Fish, Mukul Pahuja, Jessica Dawley, Stewart Newman, and Loni Harwood.
Fish and Dawley would be the only two SHRP team members to make the money along with Seminole Hard Rock Tampa poker ambassador Wally Maddah. After bursting the money bubble, they played down to the end of Level 16 on Day 2 and paused action with 12 players remaining, Rocha leading the way, and Dawley making her second deep run in a huge, multi-day event this series.
Dawley fell victim to a bad beat to exit in tenth place along with Thomas Gari in the same hand. John Dubois, Will Underdown, Kazu Oshima, and Teddy Conner followed quickly before the last four players settled into a long, deep grind.
It took an hour to lose another player when William Kopp was sent out and favorite Alex Rocha followed in third after a bad run of cards. Maraone and Nick Shkolnik held similar stacks before heads up play began and they decided to split up the remaining prize pool.
Each took home more than $200,000 for their $570 investment and Maraone was declared the champ thanks to his slightly bigger stack. He banked $212,532 along with the trophy, custom-framed winner’s photo courtesy of IMPDI, and a seat in the $10,000 WPT Finale/$3,500 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship freeroll.
Final table results:
1st: Vittorio Maraone – $212,532*
2nd: Nick Shkolnik – $206,530*
3rd: Alex Rocha – $107,961
4th: William Kopp – $91,782
5th: Teddy Conner – $76,144
6th: Kazu Oshima – $60,652
7th: Will Underdown – $45,307
8th: John Dubois – $30,692
9th: Thomas Gari – $21,923
10th: Jessica Dawley – $14,615
* – denotes heads up deal