$1,500 + $150 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘n’ Poker Open” Main Event

Blinds: 500/1K/100 ante

We have half an hour left in the last level of the day. 81 players are left and the average chip stack is 67K. Cong Pham is leading the way after winning a bit pot that put him up to close to 250K in chips. We’ll have end of day chip counts shortly after play concludes for the evening.

$1,500 + $150 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘n’ Poker Open” Main Event

Blinds: 400/800/100 ante

There are 90 players remaining with 20 minutes remaining in Level 9. Notable players and their approximate chip stacks:

Chino Rheem 135K
Cong Pham 135K
Daryll Fish 125K
Matthew Waxman 85K
Ronnie Bardah 40K

At one table, there was an action packed hand that went down like this:

A woman in early position from Seat 5, raised to 2200. Seat 8 called. Seat 1 from the button called. Seat 2 from the small blind called. Seat 3 from the big blind made it 6800 to go. Seat 5, 8 and 1 all called. Seat 2 decided to move all in. Seat 3 moved all in. The other three decided they’d seen enough and folded. Seat 2 had and was behind the of Seat 3. The board would run out and Seat 3 would not only get 24.4K from Seat 2 but also 20.4K from the other three players who had each stuck in 6.8K.

$1,500 + $150 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘n’ Poker Open” Main Event

Blinds: 300/600/75 ante

There are 117 players remaining, meaning everyone is now upstairs.

“King” Cong Pham, a Naples, Florida resident is playing here at the Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘n’ Roll Poker Open” Championship event today. Cong has been on an incredible run this year. He started it off with a 28th place finish in the $10,000,000 Guaranteed Event here in August for $46,540. He followed that up three weeks later with a 3rd place at the WPT Borgata Poker Open for $301,225. A month later he was winning a HPT event in Jacksonville for $104,033 and followed that up last week with a 21st place finish for $10,264 at the WPT Jacksonville tournament. For those keeping score at home that’s $462,063 in just over three months. He’ll be trying to add some more to that total over the next few days.

$1,500 + $150 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘n’ Poker Open” Main Event

Blinds: 250/500/75 ante

We’re back from dinner break and there is some poker playing going on but most everyone is talking about the incredible ending to the Alabama-Auburn game. The whole poker room was buzzing after the miraculous Auburn win, with a bunch of “Oh My God’s” and “Wow’s” permeating the room.

Here are some photos taken from around the Day 1B field for the Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘n’ Roll Poker Open”.

$1,500 + $150 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘n’ Poker Open” Main Event

Blinds: 200/400/50 ante

Some Twitter updates from players playing in the Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘n’ Roll Poker Open” Championship Event.

40k on dinner break @SHRPOLIVE $1650 main

— Ryan Gianquitti (@quitti33) November 30, 2013

Little over 50k going into dinner break. Pretty lax just swimming thru the day. #Fudruckerstho

— Cord Garcia (@CordGarcia) November 30, 2013

120k on dinner break of WPT regional @ Hard Rock blinds gonna be 250/500 when we return

— Darryll Fish (@DarryllFish) November 30, 2013

$1,500 + $150 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘n’ Poker Open” Main Event

Blinds: 200/400/50 ante

Players are now on a one hour dinner break. There are 144 players remaining. Among the notables still in the field are Matthew Waxman, Ronnie Bardah, Darryl Fish and Chino Rheem who somehow snuck into the back corner and evaded our eyes until moments ago.

Here is one of the trophies they are playing for:

$1,500 + $150 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘n’ Poker Open” Main Event

Blinds: 200/400/50 ante

With registration closed we can begin to get an idea about who will be around at the end of the day. Matt Waxman and Tony Ruberto are still going strong but the father/son duo of Jeff and Zach Kessler are done for the Main Event.

A funny old gentleman in the 9-seat at Table 31 recently sent two other players to the rail when he called both their all-ins with after the flop up against top-top and top two. The 9-seat just chuckled as the two players to his right were drawing dead after the dealer put out the turn. No miracle boat on the river and the pony-tailed pulled in the 71,000 pot.

The rest of the field has quickly dropped under 150 players and those who stick around for Day 2 will join the 48 players with chips from Day 1A.

$1,500 + $150 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘n’ Poker Open” Main Event

Blinds: 150/300/50 ante

Players are off on their second break of the day as registration is about to close. The board shows 259 entrants so far bringing the combined Day 1 field up to 469 with 15 minutes left to register and the prizepool already over $700,000.

Two-time WPT Champion David “Chino” Rheem was back on Day 1B to give it another shot after he failed to advance yesterday. He unfortunately only lastes a few hands before hitting the rail once again. Other recent eliminations include Zach Kessler and Event 5 winner Peter Striano.

Players have just 15 minutes during the break to enter the tournament or surrender their chip to buy back in for a full reload. Official Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘n’ Roll Poker Open” Main Event numbers once staff crunch the numbers.