$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 9: 600/1,200 with a 1,200 ante
Flight A Entries: 228

There are roughly 110 players remaining and they are enjoying a 40-minute respite from the poker room. They’ll return to play six more levels before bagging up their chips.

Andre Rakusa continued to have a nice run after the last break and moved his stack up to 199,000. But they are all chasing Richard Zipes at 205,000 and it looks like a lot of that came from previous big stack Seth Gilson.

Zipes came real close to a big win in 2015 when he finished second in the 2,500-entry Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown $570 Deep Stack tournament for more than $100,000.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 9: 600/1,200 with a 1,200 ante
Flight A Entries: 228

The entry pace slowed a bit as they went into Level 9 as the 228 is still on pace to top last year’s count with two more flights to go.

Two recent entries are two of the toughest. Sean Shah owns a Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown trophy from last year and a Coco Poker Showdown victory along with both a Friday Special and Saturday Deep Stack special title.

Steven Karp does not own a SHRP trophy with three runner-up finishes to get close. But he does own some jewelry for his WSOP Circuit win in 2014.

Flight A players will run out the clock on Level 9 and take a 40-minute dinner break.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 8: 500/1,000 with a 1,000 ante
Flight A Entries: 220

We had a few more familiar faces jump into Flight A and we found three with a little success in their career.

Michael Newman already had ten SHRP victories to his credit, including three majors, before he took a big jump by winning the 2017 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open” Championship in November for nearly $350,000.

Dimitry Agrachov won our Tuesday Night Special event last summer along with several deep runs through the years. He also owns a title from the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Winter Poker Open at our sister property on the west coast of the state.

Jason Young is still waiting for his first SHRP tournament win after migrating from the frigid Northeast. But he owns a WSOP bracelet so we guess he’s okay with that.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 7: 400/800 with a 800 ante
Flight A Entries: 208

Flight A players finished up their break away from the tables and cards went back in the air. They will play three more levels before going on a 40-minute dinner break.

Bill Farnan, the reigning Fun in the Sun Main Event champ, is your new chip leader and it’s not even close. He sits with 192,000 and his closest competitors are Andre Rakusa with 147,000 and Seth Gilson with 143,000.

There’s still plenty of time to catch Farnan and he’ll have to keep moving higher if he wants to hold the lead until the end of the night.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 6: 300/600 with a 600 ante
Flight A Entries: 204

Level 6 came to an end and player are taking their second break of the day. The count topped 200 entries and it is still climbing, even during break.

We will take another chance to walk the empty tables to update our chip leaders.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 6: 300/600 with a 600 ante
Flight A Entries: 197

It’s beginning to look like Flight A is going to eclipse the numbers from last year for a great start to the series. The 2017 May Deep Stack Poker Series drew 254 entries for Flight A of Event 1 and the 197 we have so far is a fair pace to get past it before they end their day near 11pm this evening.

We continue to find our friends and regulars taking part in the Thursday session including two-time SHRP winner Chris Nomikos. The poker room favorite is shooting for his first series win to go with his two Poker Room recurring tournaments on the monthly schedule.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 5: 300/500 with a 500 ante
Flight A Entries: 187

Steven Bennett is a regular force in most of our big tournaments and the SHRP regular picked up a huge score last month. The opening event of the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown drew more than 3,000 entries and Bennett took top honors after a four-way deal. Bennett earned $186,000 for the win. It was his sixth SHRP title and second SHRP major trophy.

He’s back in the poker room going for number seven.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 4: 200/400 with a 400 ante
Flight A Entries: 163

Flight A players are back in their seats after the first break with more than 160 entries in the game so far. That puts the tournament on an easy pace to the $150,000 Guarantee with the weekend coming up.

We took a quick walk among the tables while they were gone to check out the stacks. Juan Ferrer was the first break leader and returned to a stack worth 95,000. Not a bad run up from the 30,000 he started with two hours ago.

It looks like Seth Schapira’s 83,000 is good enough for the second spot and he’s running well.

“Yesterday I couldn’t catch anything,” Schapira said. “Today I’m getting aces and kings and straights and trips. It’s a good start.”

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 3: 200/300 with a 300 ante
Flight A Entries: 149

The afternoon wears on and the entry count continues to climb at a steady pace. We should easily top 150 before the first break and it won’t stop climbing until Sunday afternoon.

Erik Christensen is another familiar face in today’s field, getting an early jump on the big opening event. He came close to winning his first WSOP Circuit ring here back in September, finishing runner-up in the $1,125 NLH Single Re-Entry event, but he made it through last month. Christensen earned that first ring in Iowa in April to push his career total cash over $400,000.

In an interesting research stat, the win also made him the second most successful “Christensen” in WSOP history after Casper Christensen’s single cash for a 62nd Main Event finish.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 2: 100/200 with a 200 ante
Flight A Entries: 110

It looks like we’re going to have a big crowd coming right out of the gates to start the series. The first of three flights crossed over 100 entries soon after the first level ended and there is plenty of time to run it up. They have 40-minute levels in the opening flights with 15 levels in the day and late registration open until the start of Day 2 on Sunday.

This bodes well for a huge prize pool.

Luis Santoni was an early entrant today and having a good time at his table. The SHRP regular is a poker legend with two trophies here and his first career tournament win was nearly 25 years ago. Santoni’s biggest score came when he won the inaugural Legends of Poker Main Event back in the wonder years of 1995.