The 2019 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown kicked off on Thursday with two flights of the $1,000,000 Guarantee opener along with a one-day Omaha 8 trophy event.
Flights A and B of Event 1 drew a combined 655 entries to put it on pace to hit the guaranteed prize pool early on Saturday. Flight A saw 42 players advance to Day 2 on Sunday and Flight B returned the exact same number.
Of the 84 already set for Day 2, Kyle Carino put away the biggest stack and his 362,000 is the early leader. Adam Mann came close to matching him in Flight B but he was two 1K chips shorter with 360,000 in his bag.
Other notables advancing include T.K. Miles, Jason Bral, Eli Levy, Jacquelyn Scott, Michael Tureniec, Marcus Stein, and current SHRP Player of the Year Brett Bader.
Top ten stacks so far:
- Kyle Carino – 362,000
- Adam Mann – 360,000
- Rodney Moret-Rojas – 346,000
- T.K. Miles – 323,000
- Jason Bral – 320,000
- Javier Zarco – 299,000
- Robert Brown – 295,000
- Joel Brink – 273,000
- James Peterson – 272,000
- James Frisk – 264,000
Event 1 chip counts through Flight B
Event 1 wasn’t the only action in the Event Center on Thursday, we also awarded our first trophy of the series. The schedule is jam-packed with non-hold’em tournaments and the first was Event 3.
It was a $360 buy-in Limit Omaha 8 game for our split-pot fans. The tournament drew 67 entries to push the prize pool over $20,000 and the last nine players took home some money. Phil Hui was the headliner at the final table trying to earn back-to-back SHRP Omaha titles. He won the $570 Omaha 8 tournament during the Lucky Hearts Poker Open in January but fell one spot short of another this time around.
Harry Eisenberg beat Hui, the WSOP Omaha 8 bracelet winner, heads up for the title and outright win. This is the second major SHRP title for Eisenberg to go along with his 2018 Lucky Hearts Poker Open H.O.R.S.E. trophy,
Event 2 results:
1st: Harry Eisenberg – $7,034 + Showdown trophy
2nd: Phil Hui – $4,020
3rd: Stephen Reid – $2,462
4th: Donny Rubinstein – $1,759
5th: Robert Mangino – $1,357
6th: Vasu Amarapu – $1,055
7th: Hoyt Verner – $905
8th: Cory Zeidman – $804
9th: Monte Adler – $704
Images courtesy of Eric Harkins and IMPDI. If you would like to place a custom picture order from your time at Showdown, you can find his booth in the hallway outside the Event Center.