Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship (Freeze-Out)
Level 8: 500/1,000/100 Ante

We’ve hit our next break on Day 1.  Registration will be closed after this timeout is over. We’ll have our final numbers and payouts for our Championship event when they become official.

Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship (Freeze-Out)
Level 8: 500/1,000/100 Ante

Less than one hundred people in the world can say they’ve been heads-up to win the WSOP Main Event.  Five of them are here today.

1998 Champion Scotty Nguyen is in the house today laughing it up along with 2009 winner Joe Cada.  Jonathan Duhamel, who won it all in 2010, is here along with the man he defeated that year, Tampa’s own John Racener. And the man whose heads-up moment was immortalized in the movie “Rounders”, Erik Seidel is taking his shot at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship.

This event always brings out poker’s best and we’re honored to have these all-time greats joining us today.

Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship (Freeze-Out)
Level 8: 500/1,000/100 Ante

With the board showing on the river, Ryan Tepen moved all in UTG+1, and his opponent (UTG) thought for a while before calling.

Tepen turned over for runner-runner quad deuces, and his opponent sat there stunned for a few moments, reluctant to show his cards. (Though it seemed pretty clear he didn’t have pocket fours.) Tepen’s opponent eventually tried to muck, but since it was an all-in situation, the dealer flipped over his cards so everyone could see — for a full house, fours full of deuces. Tepen won the pot to double up in chips.

Ryan Tepen  –  170,000  (170 bb)

Across the room, a player moved all in under the gun for 10,100, and Brian Yoon called from the button with . The short stack turned over , and he needed to improve to stay alive.

The board came , and the pocket queens held up for Yoon to win the pot and bust the other player.

Brian Yoon  –  132,000  (132 bb)

Meanwhile, Ari Engel, who was among the chipleaders at the dinner break, has only increased the size of his chip stack to about 240,000 since then.

The always-talkative Travell Thomas, sitting at the same table, said Engel has their entire table covered, and said we just missed a big hand where Engel cracked aces with aces or something like that. Engel just smiled behind his big chip stack.

Ari Engel  –  240,000  (240 bb)

Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship (Freeze-Out)
Level 8: 500/1,000/100 Ante

Table of Death seemed like too light of a term for the group we found on Table 2.

Jared Hamby, Stuart Patterson, Dan O’Brien, Jonathan Delong, Ralph Massey, Jermaine Gerlin, Ken Aldridge and Christian Rodriguez are all going to have to survive each other to reach Day 2 in our Main Event.  The table was even tougher a few minutes ago but Hamby took out November Niner Joshua Beckley to open a seat up for some poor unfortunate soul who will probably not be too happy when they sit down.

522 players remain out of 905 entrants so far in our Championship event.

Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship (Freeze-Out)
Level 8: 500/1,000/100 Ante

The player appreciation party @shrpo looked like so much fun I decided to bust. Gonna go see if I can eat and drink 5k worth

— Ray Henson (@Ray_Henson) August 16, 2015

ALMOST wish I didn’t have 64k @ 800 in $5k/$5MM so I could go at the players’ party @ Kuro at 9! Free food/open bar pic.twitter.com/IpU04O6SB6

— Matt Stout (@MattStoutPoker) August 16, 2015

Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship (Freeze-Out)
Level 8: 500/1,000/100 Ante

Level 7 comes to an end, and Level 8 begins with increased blinds of 500-1,000 and a 100 ante. With 540 players remaining from a field of 905, the average chip stack is about 50,300 (50 big blinds).

Registration remains open until the beginning of Level 9, around 10:00 pm.

Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship (Freeze-Out)
Level 7: 400/800/100 Ante

There’s been a recent trend in big events for some of the women to create a pool among themselves as a Ladies’ Last-Longer, and that modern tradition is continuing here at SHRPO:

With the last longer ladies on dinner of the @shrpo main. @e_tay @abbeydaniels1 @AdventuresPoker @JessicaDawley pic.twitter.com/KnWBE1KRmK

— Xuan Liu (@xxl23) August 16, 2015

Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship (Freeze-Out)
Level 7: 400/800/100 Ante

Some of the storied names in the history of poker have come out of the Sunshine State.  The first names that typically come to mind are the Mizrachi brothers.  We’ve already seen Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi in the field and his brother Robert has already won a event in this year’s Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open series.

Two more Florida superstars are battling it out today.  Matt Waxman, who has now cracked the top ten all-time live tournament money winners in the state’s history, is looking to add this main event title to go along with his 2013 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N Roll” Poker Open Main Event victory.  Waxman finished in the top 75 players in the WSOP Main Event the past two years and continues to establish himself as one of the most dangerous players in the game.

Of course, the man who has now taken the top spot in the list of Florida players is Jason Mercier.  Mercier continued to build on his status as one of the game’s elite winning his third WSOP bracelet this summer and narrowly missed a fourth with a runner-up finish and another seventh place finish this summer.  Mercier’s $15,266,974 live earnings leads the Florida contingent along with being the 12th highest in live poker tournament history.  He is also currently the #1 player in the GPI standings as well.

We’ll see one of these players or one of the other many Florida poker standouts can keep the trophy withing the state’s boundaries when the tournament wraps up on Tuesday.

Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship (Freeze-Out)
Level 7: 400/800/100 Ante

Chipleader Brian Phillis was the only player above 200,000 at the dinner break — he had 204,700. Nobody else even had 160,000.

Krystal Seiling was fifth in chips at the dinner break with 142,800. At the inaugural SHRPO event two years ago, Seiling finished 12th in the $10 million guarantee, earning $116,350.

Ari Engel is a familiar face on the tournament circuit, with more than $2.1 million in live earnings, an HPT title, and seven WSOP Circuit rings. At the dinner break, Engel was fourth in chips with 153,200.

Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship (Freeze-Out)
Level 7: 400/800/100 Ante

The players return from break to begin Level 7, with increased blinds of 400-800 and a 100 ante. With 603 players remaining, the average chip stack is about 44,800 (56 big blinds).

Here are the chipleaders from the break:

1. Brian Phillis – 204,700 (256 bb)
2. Nicholas Immekus – 157,600 (197 bb)
3. Chun Law – 154,600 (193 bb)
4. Ari Engel – 153,200 (192 bb)
5. Krystal Seiling – 142,800 (179 bb)
6. Ryan Tepen – 142,600 (178 bb)
7. Emil Soffer – 137,700 (172 bb)

The field will play four more one-hour levels today, and action should end around midnight.