2018 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open 
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino 
Hollywood, Florida
Event #15 
$1,100 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Max 
Entries: 237 
Prize Pool: $229,890 
August 8, 2018

Taking time away from any activity can create some proverbial rust the needs to knocked off. Julio Marines spent several years away from tournament poker, but there was no rust in one of his first events back from his hiatus.

The poker dealer from Weslaco, Texas defeated a 237-entry field in the $1,100 no-limit hold’em six-max event. He earned $49,710 for winning one of his first tournaments back from several years away from the tournament poker world.

Not only is it one of his first tournaments back, it’s also the first tournament he’s ever won.

“[It’s] my first tournament that I won,” said the 30-year-old after the final card was dealt. “I’ve been pretty deep with some huge stacks before and just had some blow ups.”

Marines is no stranger to a poker table, having turned pro at 18 years old. He played high-stakes cash games with a lot of early success. So much so that this kind of money isn’t new to him.

“I’ve actually won more money in cash games,” he said. “But this actually feels a lot better… I used to play pretty high, but this feels better. I’ve never won a tournament before, so I really enjoyed it.”

After several years as a professional poker player, a little bit of bad luck made him reevaluate what he wanted to do. He stopped playing and began dealing.

Just recently he’s begun to start playing more poker again and decided to take a trip to South Florida to mix in some poker with a vacation.

“My girlfriend is flying in and we are going to see the Everglades and stuff,” said Marines. “The tournament was fun and hopefully I keep the good run going.”

Marines came into the unofficial final table near the bottom of the chip counts, but steadily chipped up throughout the final table. He stayed away from some of the bigger swings until he got down to three-handed play with Michael Rossitto and Jordan Redavid.

Marines hit runners to make a straight against Rossitto and then knocked him out in third when he flopped an open-ended straight draw and a flush draw against Rossitto’s bigger flush draw.

Marines hit a pair on the turn, which ended up being good enough for the whole pot and went into heads-up play against Redavid with a slightly better than 2-to-1 chip advantage.

There was talk of a deal for a few minutes, but it was eventually shot down by Redavid. Heads-up only lasted one hand, with Redavid getting all in preflop with jack-eight dominated by Marines’ ace-eight.

Marines ended up making the nut flush to secure his first-ever tournament victory. He summed his play succinctly.

“I’m pretty happy. I’m happy with the way I played today.”

The 237-entry field paid out the top 40 spots. Here are the final table results:

1st: Julio Marines – $49,710
2nd: Jordan Redavid – $33,850
3rd: Michael Rossitto – $23,505
4th: Guillermo Socarras – $16,650
5th: Nicholas Mahabee – $12,030
6th: Marc MacDonnell – $8,875

• Download: Final Results (PDF)