$300 Limit Omaha/8 (Re-Entry)
End of Level 12: 2,500/5,000 Limits
Event 2 Players Remaining: 14 of 76

The Omaha/8 event dropped down to the last two tables before dinner break and lost a few more afterwards. Only 14 players remain with nine of them getting a piece of the prize pool.

Michael Lipman is the only player clear of the danger zone and he has a big lead over the other 13. They’ll return after dinner to play down to a champion at 3,000/6,000 limits.

Table 7
Seat 1: Empty
Seat 2: Wayne Brown – 19,000 (3 big bets)
Seat 3: Brandon Berkenfeld – 76,500 (13 big bets)
Seat 4: Alan Beyda – 29,000 (5 big bets)
Seat 5: Empty
Seat 6: Kevin Love – 34,500 (6 big bets)
Seat 7: Robert Campbell – 22,000 (4 big bets)
Seat 8: Dale Phillips – 29,500 (5 big bets)
Seat 9: Joel Harwood – 53,075 (9 big bets)

Table 8
Seat 1: Leonard Germain – 82,500 (14 big bets)
Seat 2: Empty
Seat 3: Peter Bronstein – 5,500 (1 big bets)
Seat 4: Jordan Chizick – 30,500 (5 big bets)
Seat 5: Brett Trevillian – 55,500 (9 big bets)
Seat 6: Joey Prosper – 75,500 (13 big bets)
Seat 7: Empty
Seat 8: Michael Lipman – 206,000 (34 big bets)
Seat 9: Alexander Michaels – 3,500 (1 big bets)

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 12: 800/1,600 with a 200 ante
Day 1C Players Remaining: 99 of 375

Player returned from their final break of the day with less than 100 players remaining. They’ll grind down three more levels before calling it a night.

SHRP regular Charlemagne Benjamin is one of those players moving their stack and is climbing the counts with 195,000.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 11: 600/1,200 with a 200 ante
Day 1C Players Remaining: 126 of 375

The Omaha/8 tournament isn’t the only game playing quickly today. Flight C is moving right along as well with only 126 players remaining of the starting 375.

Former SHRP champion Nigel Murray continues to lead and has pushed his stack up to 222,000 with a little over three levels to go in the day.

David Jackson is back with us and the pro is still looking for his first career SHRP title. He has victories all over the country and more than a few final tables here, but the closest he’s come so far was a runner-up finish to Brett Bader in the 2013 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Deepstacks tournament.

Jackson is due.

$300 Limit Omaha/8 (Re-Entry)
Level 10: 1,500/3,000 Limits
Event 2 Players Remaining: 27 of 76

The Omaha/8 tournament is playing down quickly and they pulled a 27-player redraw less than an hour after registration closed.

Brandon Berkenfeld is one of the players still around for the redraw, some of his chips coming when he knocked Phil Hui out earlier in the day. He has two final table appearances already this year in SHRP Omaha/8 events. Berkenfeld finished sixth in the 2016 Seminole Hard Rock Lucky Hearts Poker Open Omaha/8 tournament and followed that up with a third place finish in the same event at the Coco Poker Showdown less than two weeks later.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 9: 400/800 with a 100 ante
Day 1C Players Remaining: 180 of 375

Registration closed on the third flight of Event 1 and we are getting closer to hitting the $500,000 guaranteed prize pool.

After all the accounting was complete, there were 375 entrants in the morning session to push the combined total to 1,072 entrants over three starting flights. That leaves the field only 595 entrants shy of hitting the mark and we will come close tonight, then hit it in the morning.

Flight breakdown and upcoming schedule:

$300 Limit Omaha/8 (Re-Entry)
Level 9: 1,000/2,000 Limits
Event 2 Players: 76

Registration closed on Event 2 with 76 entrants aiming for the SHRPO title. They created a prize pool worth $19,830 with the final table nine getting a piece. A min-cash is worth $582 while the winner will take home $5,817 along with the trophy and custom-framed winner’s photo courtesy of IMPDI.

1st: $5,817
2nd: $4,070
3rd: $2,616
4th: $1,938
5th: $1,454
6th: $1,163
7th: $969
8th: $775
9th: $581

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 8: 300/600 with a 75 ante
Day 1C Players: 370

Players are taking their second break of the day and registration will close on this flight when the return. We’ll likely go over last night’s entrant count and we’ll be at the halfway point of Event 1.

$300 Limit Omaha/8 (Re-Entry)
Level 8: 800/1,600 Limits
Event 2 Players: 76

Phil Hui has one career tournament victory, it just happens to be a WSOP bracelet from the 2014 $3,000 Omaha/8 tournament.

If he wants to win the SHRPO equivalent, he’ll have to do it on his second bullet.

Hui was all-in for 3,700 after the flop and saw his was out-flopped big by . He needed to catch to rescue his first attempt but the turn and river were no good.

$300 Limit Omaha/8 (Re-Entry)
Level 6: 500/1,000 Limits
Event 2 Players: 65

The Omaha/8 field continues to add more players even as the first few hit the rail.

Omaha/8 specialist Robert Campbell was one of the latest to get in the game and he has a little bit of success in this game variant. He has a dozen tournament wins with all but one coming in some form of Omaha/8. Campbell has four tournaments wins in three of our major series and needs one from the Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open” to complete his own version of a Grand Slam.

On the other side of the coin, SHRP friend Kevin “Kevmath” Mathers was short-stacked at the first break and could not run it up.

“Hey, I made Level 6,” he said while looking on the bright side.

“And I wasn’t the first one out.”

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 6: 200/400 with a 50 ante
Day 1C Players: 320

Flight C moved over 300 entrants after the first break and we are within shouting distance of topping last night’s big field of 371.

Zo Karim more than doubled his starting stack in the early going and looking for his third Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood title. The WSOP circuit winner captured his first SHRP trophy back in 2011 and added another during the 2014 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown.

Karim has more than $1.4 million in career earnings with his biggest cash coming here when he finished third in the 2013 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship.