$5,250 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 2: 100/200 with a 200
Total Entrants: 282
On a final board reading 
Stephen Chidwick bet 2,500 into a pot of around 10,000 from the small blind.
Mike Vanieo raised to 7,500 and Chidwick stared him down before electing to call.
Vanieo tabled 
for the winning straight and Chidwick mucked.
Mike Vanieo – 44,000
Stephen Chidwick – 27,000
$5,250 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 2: 100/200 with a 200 ante
Total Entrants: 283
We get our fair share of poker champions in the field and today we have the latest to win the top honor in poker.
John Cynn is in today’s flight and the last tournament he won happened to be the 2018 World Series of Poker Main Event. He outlasted the second biggest field in WSOP Main Event history to walk away with $8,800,000 and a massive piece of jewelry.
We expect to see other WSOP Main Event champ before the day is though. Joe McKeehen has been here for most of the series and Scott Blumstein showed up a few days ago. Jonathan Duhamel pops in from time to time and Carlos “The Matador” Mortensen, Greg Merson, and Ryan Riess should be here at some point.
$5,250 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 1: 100/100
Total Entrants: 240
A player under the gun opened to 400, Anna Antimony called from the small blind, as did the big blind,
The flop came 
, it checked to under the gun who bet 600 and Antimony called.
The turn came the 
, Antimony checked, and her opponent bet 1,500.
The river brought the 
, Antimony checked again and her opponent bet 4,500. Antimony thought shortly before calling with 
and was good against her opponent’s 
.
Anna Antimony – 46,500
$5,250 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 1: 100/100
Flight A Entries: 229
There are two mainstream ways to enter the Championship; direct buy-in or pick up a seat via satellite. Vincent Cami took a different path to the big game.
We run random drawings where players can win a seat into the Championship by only entering their name. For the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship, we gave away three seats and Cami is the first to join this afternoon.
The Northeast grinder made his way to sunny South Florida looking for his first cash with us.
$5,250 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 1: 100/100
Total Entrants: 220
The banter had already began at table 11 while they waited shorthanded for others to join.
Nick Palma said to Shaun Deeb “I’m crazy but I won’t go too crazy with the table talk today”
Blair Hinkle who won the first ever SHRPO Championship back in 2013 for $1,745,245 chimed in jokingly “I drew the best table”
Deeb who is fresh off is WSOP success where he won two bracelets responded “Definitely don’t need headphones”
$5,250 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 1: 100/100
Total Entrants: 192
After a preliminary walk through the room the tournament floor we spotted many familiar faces including, Cliff Josephy, Ankush Mandavia, Jaqueline Scott, Daniel Strelitz, Maria Konnikova, Joe Elpayaa, Mike Leah, Ari Engel, Craig Varnell, Mike Wang, and Event 13 winner James Romero.
$5,250 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 1: 100/100
Flight A Entries: 180
Players began taking their seats 15 minutes prior to the start of the Championship and most were settled at noon.
Promptly at the top of the hour, Tournament Directory Tony Burn (along with Matt Savage and Director of Poker Operations William Mason) instructed the dealers to “shuffle up and deal.”
$5,250 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 1: 100/100
The Hard Rock Event Center is empty now but in 30 minutes players will begin piling in to take their seats for Day 1A of the 2018 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship.
The $5,250 buy-in Championship has a $3,000,000 guaranteed prize pool and headlines the Big 4 tournaments which will play out their final tables at the same time on the same stage surrounded by the Poker Night in America cameras.
Championship players will start out with 40,000 deep stacks and levels will run 60 minutes long until only 27 players remain later in the weekend. Late registration is open until 10pm this evening and players are limited to a single Championship re-entry if they lose their first stack.
They have a 75-minute dinner break scheduled at 6:30pm and Day 1 will come to an end after Level 10. Those with chips will have their ticket punched for Day 2 on Sunday.
This is the sixth running of the SHRPO Championship and we look forward to crowning our next Champion.
Primary Event Schedule
12PM: Day 1A – $5,250 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship
Secondary and Satellite Schedule
10AM: Event 53 – $555 Super Turbo Championship Satellite (1-in-10)
3PM: Event 54 – $570 Championship Mega Satellite (1-in-10)
8PM: Event 55 – $570 Championship Mega Satellite (1-in-10)
10:30PM: Event 56 – $555 Super Turbo Championship Satellite (1-in-10)
2018 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Hollywood, Florida
Event #18
Jeff Conine Charity Poker Classic / Charity Series of Poker
Entries: 382
Prize Pool: $30,000 in cash and prizes
August 9, 2018
The seventh annual Jeff Conine Charity Poker Classic broke records before it even got started, as the 312 players who were in their seats for shuffle up and deal already surpassed last year’s record field of 307 — and there were still two hours of registration and rebuys.
When registration finally closed after the first break, the total field had reached 382 entries, good for $106,960 going to the Conine Clubhouse at the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. (More on the charity in a minute.) But that’s just the start of the charitable donations.
A couple of local businesses made $10,000 donations, which were presented in the form of giant checks shortly before play began. There was also a silent auction that began during the pre-tournament cocktail party and continued during the tournament itself, as well as a live auction during the first break that raised an additional $9,300. We don’t have the official number yet, but the total amount raised this year for the Conine Clubhouse should easily surpass last year’s total, which was around $130K.
As for the charity itself, the best description of the Conine Clubhouse comes from their own website:
Conine Clubhouse, named in honor of World Series champion Jeff Conine and his family, opened in May 1997 to serve as a “home away from home” for families of children receiving medical care at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital. Families can stay free of charge (based on availability) in a comfortable and nurturing environment.
Before we get to the action on the felt, check out this short video with a look at the cocktail party and a preview of the tournament as Maria Ho interviews Charity Series of Poker (CSOP) founder Matt Stout, and charity headliner Jeff Conine:
The field was a good mix of poker pros, recreational players, sports celebrities, and amateurs just looking to have a good time and donate to charity.
Florida Panthers goalie Roberto Luongo was in the field, and survived to the final six tables, while retired Miami Dolphins wide receiver Mark “Super” Duper went even deeper than that. Charity headliner Jeff Conine was in the field, of course, as a two-time MLB All-Star and two-time World Series champion. (That’s the original World Series. You know, baseball.)
Speaking of the World Series, the last two WSOP Main Event champions were in the field — Scott Blumstein and John Cynn, along with this year’s runner-up, Tony Miles. There were plenty of other poker pros in the field, including Sheddy Siddiqui, Joseph Cheong, Jeff Fielder, and reigning WSOP Ladies Event champion Jessica Dawley.
There were a few fun bonus prizes awarded at the first break, with $1,000 going to the first-break chipleader, and another $1,000 going to the player with the most entries in this re-entry event. The dubious honor of most entries was split between poker pros Mike Leah and Chance Kornuth, who both bought in four times each, and they each received $500 to reduce their investment a bit.
Poker pro Tim Reilly was briefly announced as the first-break chipleader with 83,500, but then poker pro Maria Ho spoke up to pull the rug out from under Reilly — Ho had 85,000 in her stack, which was good enough to be the overall chipleader. (Though Reilly was unintentionally slow-rolled a bit here, he’d get his redemption by making it to the final table.)
Class act that she is, Ho immediately donated the $1,000 chipleader bonus back to the Conine Clubhouse charity.
At the first break, there were about 160 players remaining, but charity events are known for two things — the play is fun, and the play is fast. By the second break (after four hours of poker), the field was already down to the final 25 players. There would not be a third break.
It took less than half an hour to drop from 25 players to the final 10, and they were in the money as they combined to a single table to play down to a winner. These were the approximate chip counts as the final table began:
Seat 1. Julio Marines – 125,000 (3 bb)
Seat 2. Wilson Dondo – 140,000 (4 bb)
Seat 3. Lexy Gavin – 175,000 (4 bb)
Seat 4. Tim Reilly – 453,000 (11 bb)
Seat 5. Marlo McCloskey – 640,000 (16 bb)
Seat 6. Brittney Barnes – 524,000 (13 bb)
Seat 7. Randall Fernandez – 782,000 (20 bb)
Seat 8. Peter Shapiro – 250,000 (6 bb)
Seat 9. Johnny Pham – 470,000 (12 bb)
Seat 10. Lisa Costello – 230,000 (6 bb)
Even at the final table, the atmosphere stayed fun and friendly between the players, taking their chances without any particular regard for which prize packages went to which finishing spots — except for first prize, of course.
When Marlo McCloskey busted in 3rd place, it began the heads-up battle between Randall Fernandez and Johnny Pham. They cautiously battled each other preflop for 10 hands before they got it all in on Hand #11, with 
for Fernandez and 
for Pham.
The board came 
. Pham paired his jack on the river, but the same card gave Fernandez a club flush — and the victory.
Fernandez began the final table as chipleader, and it gave him more room to strategize than the shorter stacks. Fernandez said, “I knew it was going to be an all-in game there toward the end. I kind of laid back and let a few people knock themselves out, while I was just trying to pick my spots with the best hand, and it worked out.”
Fernandez was born and raised right here in the Hollywood area, and got to see the South Florida poker boom first hand. He saw the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino being built, and he really enjoys playing here.
“It’s awesome. Everything, the whole setup, their structures. Everything is great here,” said Fernandez.
Fernandez is self-employed, and though he plays poker seriously, he still considers himself a recreational player.
“I came here to have fun and support the charity, but I still tried to play good poker.”
As part of his first prize package, Fernandez received a $5,250 seat in the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship, which begins tomorrow (Friday) at 12:00 noon. Fernandez hasn’t decided whether he’ll play on Day 1A or 1B, but we’ll keep an eye out for him to see if he can parlay this victory in the charity event into a deep run in the SHRPO Championship.
Of course the real winner in this event was the charity, the Conine Clubhouse, and the families that it helps in their most desperate times. Thanks to everyone who participated in the event, as well as all the companies that donated money, resources, and prizes.
Final Table Results:
1st: Randall Fernandez – $5,000 plus $5,250 SHRPO Championship seat
2nd: Johnny Pham – $2,000 plus Hard Rock Atlantic City Vacation Package
3rd: Marlo McCloskey – $1,500 plus Party Like a Rock Star Package
4th: Peter Shapiro – $1,150 plus WSOP Circuit Coco Main Event Seat
5th: Brittney Barnes – $950 plus $1,100 SHRPO Big 4 seat
6th: Tim Reilly – $850 plus Party Like a Rock Star Package
7th: Lisa Costello – $750 plus Stay Like a Rock Star Vacation Package
8th: Lexy Gavin – $700 plus Stay Like a Rock Star Vacation Package
9th: Julio Marines – $650 plus Rock Spa Package
10th: Wilson Dondo – $600 plus Rock Spa Package
Note: To see the final hand for each of the final 10 players, click on their name in the results above.