2018 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Hollywood, Florida
Event #4
$360 Buy-In Pot Limit Omaha 8 or Better (Re-Entry)
Entries: 110
Prize Pool: $33,000
August 4, 2018
The Harwood name is synonymous with poker success. Loni Harwood is a two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and five-time World Series of Poker Circuit ring winner.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, her father, Joel Harwood, continued the family’s success on the poker table with a victory in the $360 pot-limit Omaha hi-lo event.
Harwood defeated the 110-entry field and took home $8,633 in a heads-up deal with JT Gold. Gold took home $7,639 for his runner-up finish.
Harwood’s victory came just 24 hours after a seventh-place finish in the $360 HORSE event. With two final tables in as many days, he snapped a string of cold cards over the last 30 days.
“I was in a very cold streak for the last month and I finally got out of it,” said Harwood after his victory. “That’s all I can say. You go up, you go down and you go up, just like everything else.”
Harwood’s daughter, Loni, is primarily a no-limit hold’em player, while Joel enjoys mixed games more. Her boyfriend, Phil Hui, however, is one of the better mixed games players around, earning a WSOP bracelet in the $3,000 Omaha hi-lo.
Even with all of the talent that surrounds Harwood, he claims that the family doesn’t share much strategy with one another.
“I didn’t teach Phil anything,” said Harwood. “And my daughter, you know, when she was young, yes she learned from me. I gave her a Masters degree and she took a PhD on her own.”
Harwood came into the final table in the middle of the chip counts, but scooped a couple key pots during six-handed play and opened up a sizable chip lead over the field.
He hit a few bumps in the road short-handed, but he eliminated Matt Edge in third place to take the chip lead into what would have been heads-up play when him and Gold almost immediately agreed to a deal.
Harwood echoed the sentiments of a few other mixed games players – that the Hard Rock is one of the best places to come play a mixed tournament.
“I’ve been playing tournaments since the late ’80s and this place is by far the best,” said Harwood. “They have the best dealers and the best everything.”
‘Miami John’ Cernuto finished fourth in this event just a day after finishing runner-up to James Gunter in yesterday’s HORSE event. Claudangelo Beaudouin also made his second final table of the series, finishing sixth for $1,518.
1st: Joel Harwood – $8,633
2nd: JT Gold – $7,369
3rd: Matt Edge – $3,663
4th: John Cernuto – $2,393
5th: Lee Jordan – $1,848
6th: Claudangelo Beaudouin – $1,518
7th: Eric von Guttenberg – $1,287
8th: Vitaliy Neyman – $1,122
9th: Matt Bianchini – $990
10th: Errol Massey – $875
11th: Andrew Blum – $875
12th: Alayne Zeto – $875
13th: Stephanie Chung – $776
14th: John Brennan – $776