$3,500 WPT Showdown Championship
Level 6: 200/400 with a 50 ante
Entries: 927

On a flop of , the player in the big blind checked and the player under the gun checked as well. Jean Gaspard bet 2,000 and Team SHRP member Stewart Newman tossed out two yellow, 5,000 denomination chips and announced a raise to a different amount.

The big blind folded, as did the under the gun player before Gaspard moved all in for about 20,000. Newman snap-called.

Newman showed , good for bottom set and was in the lead against Gaspard’s . The turn was the and the river wast he .

Newman faded Gaspard’s gutshot straight draw and sent Gaspard to the rail at least temporarily. He still has several hours to re-enter.

Stewart Newman – 55,000
Jean Gaspard – Eliminated

$3,500 WPT Showdown Championship
Level 5: 150/300 with a 50 ante
Entries: 927

The Championship is now a handful of entries away from topping $3,000,000 and we should get there before too long with a steady parade into the ballroom.

Two recent entries put more Seminole Hard Rock Poker team members in the field. Two-time WSOP bracelet Loni Harwood is grinding away in the meeting room while Jessica Dawley is sitting in the middle of the packed ballroom. She’s also looking for another big run after a 12th place finish in the 1,973-entry Event 1 and tenth place in the 2,923-entry Event 9.

$3,500 WPT Showdown Championship
Level 5: 150/300 with a 50 ante
Entries: 927

There was about 15,000 in the pot on the turn with the board reading , Allen Kessler checked from middle position and his opponent went all in from late position.

Kessler tanked for a minute before calling and was all in for about 12,000.

Kessler’s opponent tabled and Kessler showed to chop the pot with his opponent. The river is the meaningless and both players pull their bets back.

“You should’ve waited until the river to move all in,” said another player at the table. “Then Allen would’ve folded.”

Allen Kessler – 19,500

$3,500 WPT Showdown Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 5: 150/300 with a 50 Ante
Entries: 869

Charlie Carrel had 3,000 chips out in front of his button in what appeared to be a preflop three-bet behind unknown action. Picking it up live, Jordan Scott four-bet to 8,500 in the big blind, and Carrel five-bet to 17,500 total. Scott called the remainder to see a flop.

It came . Scott checked, and Carrel checked behind. That action repeated after the turn and river, with Carrel checking back both streets.

It probably wasn’t the result Scott was hoping for; he showed to win the pot with a pair of aces. The two men traded some quiet conversation after the hand, during which Carrel mentioned that he was “pretty happy about that.”

“You didn’t have it, did you?” Scott asked.

Carrel quietly slipped his noise-cancelling headphones back over his ears and said nothing further about the hand.

Jordan Scott – 100,000
Charlie Carrel – 49,000

$3,500 WPT Showdown Championship
Level 5: 150/300 with a 50 ante
Entries: 869

There was about 12,000 in the pot already with a board of . It was a heads-up battle between two WPT Champions.

Mike Del Vecchio, who just recently won WPT Rolling Thunder, bet 6,800 from the hijack and Ryan Van Sanford, who put his name on the Champions Cup in Jacksonville a couple years ago, called from the cutoff. Del Vecchio showed , but Van Sanford won the pot with .

Ryan Van Sanford – 55,000
Mike Del Vecchio – 27,000

$3,500 WPT Showdown Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 5: 150/300 with a 50 Ante
Entries: 869

Lily Kiletto was involved in a heads-up pot against Jonathan Kramer on the turn of a board. Kramer was out of position, and based on the table talk, it sounds like he had check-raised Kiletto on the flop. On the turn, Kramer bet 8,000 into a pot of about 17,000, and Kiletto called.

The river was the , and Kramer moved all in for his last 20,900 chips. Kiletto sunk deep into the tank, talking through her decision as she pondered. “Sorry, guys,” she apologized for the delay. “I have two pair. Top two.”

Kramer sat as still as a statue, and someone eventually called the clock on Kiletto. A few seconds before her countdown expired, Kiletto called, committing most of her own stack to put Kramer at risk.

Kramer showed for a set of sevens, and Kiletto mucked as she paid off her debt.

“I don’t think you can fold top two there,” Marcus Stein reassured her. “It looked like he bricked a draw.”

Jonathan Kramer – 75,000
Lily Kiletto – 8,500

$3,500 WPT Showdown Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 5: 150/300 with a 50 Ante
Entries: 869

Players are back in their seats and two hours removed from hitting their 90-minute dinner break with more than five hours left to registration.

Championship players are split between the ballroom and meeting room across the hall, over there we found our most recent champion. Joe McKeehen’s biggest poker prize came with his 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event bracelet but he added a little more to the trophy case last night.

McKeehen was part of the $2,200 Eight-Handed Freezeout and defeated Sean Perry for the title in the early hours this morning. He can be excused if he’s a little tired today but he’s stacking chips, most recently at the expense of fellow Philly area player Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler.

$3,500 WPT Showdown Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 4: 100/200 with a 25 Ante
Entries: 820

The clock is running down on Level 4 and the Championship players will take a break when the clock runs out. We’re waiting on an updated entry count but players continue to roll into the ballroom at a regular pace getting the prize pool closer to $3 million with each new seat taken.

One of the more recent entrants was Justin Young, our defending champion. The WSOP Circuit winner put $670,000 in his pocket for winning last year’s WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship and pushed his career total to $4.5 million.

$3,500 WPT Showdown Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 4: 100/200 with a 25 Ante
Entries: 820

The entry count kicked back into gear and crossed over 800 in the third hour, clearly passing $2.5 million in the prize pool and steadily climbing.

Blair Hinkle knows a little something about getting through huge fields like this. He earned his first WSOP bracelet in 2008 by besting a field of 1,344 players, a nice score but not his biggest.

Hinkle followed that up by conquering the first $10 Million GTD Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open in 2013 with better than a thousand more players than his WSOP win. He earned more than $1.7 million from a prize pool that almost reached $12 million.

$3,500 WPT Showdown Championship (Re-Entry)
Level 3: 75/150 with a 25 Ante
Entries: 747

Seminole Hard Rock Poker team members are coming out in force for the big WPT event. So far we’ve found Matt Stout, Sheddy Siddiqui, Stewart Newman, Michael Laake, Mukul Pahuja, Darryll Fish, and Matt Affleck.

The latter two sitting at a tough table that also includes Mike Leah and Anthony Zinno.

We expect we’ll see the rest of the team before too long including Jessica Dawley who already has two deep, big-field runs this series.