2021 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino 
Hollywood, Florida
Event 38
$1,100 No-Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$500,000 Guaranteed
Entries: 567
Prize Pool: $567,000
August 9-10, 2021

Heading into one of the final events of the 2021 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open, Scott Baumstein already cashed six times and made three final tables.

Following a third-place finish in an $1,100 no-limit hold’em deepstack for $34,855 and a fourth-place in the $1,700 no-limit hold’em deepstack purple chip bounty for $11,035 just last week, Baumstein capped off his series with a victory in the Big 4’s $1,100 no-limit hold’em.

Baumstein took the winner’s spot in a four-way chop after defeating a field of 567 entries to earn the trophy and $81,220. Over the course of the three-week series, Baumstein earned $132,215.

Baumstein came into the Tuesday’s final table second in chips and vaulted into chip lead one of the first hand off the deck. Baumstein found himself in a three-way all in against Katie Wier and Matt Giametta. Baumstein tabled A-K and was up against Wier’s 10-10 and Giametta’s Q-Q.

Baumstein drilled an ace on the river to open up a massive chip lead and cruise to the eventual victory.

“It was a really interesting spot,” said Baumstein after his victory. “He’s opening and first in chips and I’m second in chips. I just flat my ace-king suited. It would’ve been ICM suicide to three-bet there because I don’t really want to get it in, but once Katie goes all in, he sort of isolated her a little bit and then it is what it is at that point. My hand is really under repped and I just sort of have to go with it.”

Wier was eliminated in ninth for $10,800 and Giametta hit the rail a few hands later in seventh.

From there, Baumstein was just trying to make adjustments and not make the same mistakes he made at final tables earlier in the series.

“It was a really good way to cap a really long and grueling series,” he said. “I’ve been here grinding almost every day for 20 days and I was able to finally close one out after the chop. I was at the $1K final table last week and had some regrets. So I did things a little differently this time. I’m happy that it went better today.”

Baumstein ended up in a cooler situation five-handed or he likely would’ve taken home more money in the four-handed ICM deal. When Kyle Merron was eliminated in fifth, Baumstein and Aaron Pinson played a massive side pot with Pinson’s A-A besting Baumstein’s K-K. Merron was drawing dead on the turn after he also got all the chips in the middle preflop with Q-10.

With Pinson dragging the pot, he moved up the leaderboard and was second in chips, but the chip counts were so close that when the final four players looked at ICM numbers, Pinson and Baumstein received the exact same payout.

Since Baumstein had the ever so slight chip lead, the New York native took home the top spot and the trophy.

World Poker Tour Borgata champion Donald Maloney finished fourth and earned $48,500 in the chop.

*denotes four-handed deal