$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 11: 600/1,200/200 Ante
Flight 1E Entries: 626
Players Remaining: 290

Unless Jason Mercier shows up today or one of the Mizrachi brothers, Joshua Beckley probably holds the record in the room for most tournament dollars earned. The Jersey-native had some nice scores in his career, including picking up nearly $100,000 for a Parx Poker win, before he put his money up for the WSOP Main Event last summer.

There were 6,219 other players in the big game and Beckley outlasted 6,218 of them. He lost heads up to Joe McKeenhen for the biggest title in poker but had $4,470,000 consolation prize to comfort him. While he was waiting around between the summertime pause and the November Nine festivities, Beckley went ahead and earned his first WSOP Circuit ring in September.

He’s currently wielding a below-average stack but he has the experience/skill/moxie to run it up

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 10: 500/1,000/100 Ante
Flight 1E Entries: 626
Players Remaining: 310

We’ve come to expect to see Andre Crooks in a lot of our big tournaments, especially so during the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown. Until last year, his biggest cash came with a second place finish in the $1,100 tournament during the 2013 running of the series.

That held as his top paying result until he sat down in our WPT-televised Championship last year. Crooks battled through a 1,476-entrant field to make the final table where he cashed out in third for $383,000.

He’s still around with a chance for the back-to-back Showdown final tables while many others have gone the way of the rail. Less than half of the starting entrants are around with many more to go before bagging in a few hours.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 9: 400/800/100 Ante
Flight 1E Entries: 626

Staff have (virtually) locked the doors on the ballroom for Flight E and they cruised right past 600 entrants to settle on 626 when the official accounting was complete.

That brings the total number of entrants up to 2,086 over the first five flights with one more full run starting at 6pm. The prize pool moved over $625,000 for Event 1 and we expect it will start chasing down $750,000 before we are done.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 8: 300/600/75 Ante
Flight 1E Entries: 585

The Flight E field is on its second break of the day leaving only 15 minutes for players to get in this afternoon. Once registration closes for this flight, there will be one more chance when Flight F kicks off at 6pm.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 7: 250/500/75 Ante
Flight 1E Entries: 575

“Can we get to 600 players?”

That’s a question we’ve heard a few times and right now there’s a good chance, they have 45 minutes of play and a 15 minute break to boost the number. The flight is a success even if we drop short of six bills because the prize pool is over $600,000 with one last flight to go.

Ian O’Hara is in the early flight today and looking for his first trophy here in the ballroom. He has five career titles but has yet to grab a Hollywood trophy after three second place finishes. That fact is a little skewed when you look at his official runner-up cash against Jason Mercier in the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open $25K High Roller.

While he didn’t take home the big, shiny trophy, he earned $527,000 after the two struck a deal. That’s $10,000 more than Mercier took home with the official title.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 6: 200/400/50 Ante
Flight 1E Entries: 525

We mentioned Ory Hen earlier, the reigning Seminole Hard Rock Poker Player of the Year, and we found the current 2016 POY leader before the first break.

David Prociak was already a successful player before he went on a heater in big Seminole Hard Rock Poker events starting this past December. His road to the POY lead began with a runner-up finish to Jake Bazeley in the Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open” Championship and followed that up with another second place finish in the 2016 Seminole Immokalee Poker Challenge Main Event.

In between those two titles, he also added a trophy during the Coco Poker Showdown in January. He’s being chased by local pro TK Miles, John-Christian Templeton, and SHR Poker regular Herbert Woodbury.

There’s still plenty of time for players to get in on the big prizes available for finishing high on the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Player of the Year Leaderboard.

Seminole Hard Rock Poker Player of the Year Standings

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 5: 150/300/50 Ante
Flight 1E Entries: 475

Flight E continues to move closer to 500 entrants for the early flight and they return from the break with 475 registered in the penultimate starting session.

Ido Ashkenazi built himself a nice lead in the first four levels, then picked up more chips on the first hand back from break. He four-bet shoved after an open and small all-in and his dominated to add more chips to his stack.

A deep run this weekend won’t be Ashkenazi’s first big result in a Showdown series. He won the $570 Double Black Chip Bounty event during the 2015 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown for $15,000 and the shiny trophy.

Joan Schank came back from the break to the second biggest stack with Blake Vita, Hayden Fortini, and Paul Balzano rounding out the top five.

Top stacks and some notable names:

Ido Ashkenazi – 90,000 (300 bb)
Joan Schank – 77,325 (258 bb)
Blake Vita – 68,775 (229 bb)
Hayden Fortini – 59,400 (198 bb)
Paul Balzano – 57,700 (192 bb)
Hugh Burns – 57,525 (192 bb)
Nesly Baptiste – 52,575 (175 bb)
Nancy Birnbaum – 49,700 (166 bb)
Scott Efron – 48,250 (161 bb)
Michael Laake – 27,550 (92 bb)
David Prociak – 25,925 (86 bb)
Ryan Eriquezzo – 23,125 (77 bb)
Eric Rivkin – 18,826 (63 bb)
Sheddy Siddiqui – 18,425 (61 bb)

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
End of Level 4: 100/200/25 Ante
Flight 1E Entries: 430

Flight E players are heading off on their first break of the day with 430 entrants showing on the clock. We’ll pick up a few more while the masses huddle in the lobby and hallways and hotel rooms. They’ll return in 15 mintues and play four more levels before registration is closed.

It’s time for us to take a look at some of the leaders and it will be a hunt among the empty tables to find those big stacks.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 4: 100/200/25 Ante
Flight 1E Entries: 400

We had some people predicting Flight E would have 500 entrants by the time registration shuts down. We should have taken the over.

The crowd is filling in as more players finish their lunch and get in the action. We have 400 here at the start of Level 4 with registration open for another three hours, and the re-entries will start to run up quickly as players try to get a piece of the big prize pool.

Seminole Hard Rock Poker team member Michael Laake hit the room a few levels ago and peacefully grinding up front. He aims to stay hot after a nice end to 2015 and start to 2016. Laake has eight tournament wins to his credit with six coming on Seminole Hard Rock Poker properties. He has over $700,000 in career earnings and he picked up a guitar trophy plus $55,000 for winning the $570 buy-in Event 7 during the 2015 Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Winter Poker Open.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 3: 75/150/25 Ante
Flight 1E Entries: 358

Flight E continues to set a quick pace with the entrant count surpassing 350 as the clock switched from AM to PM. Flight D had the biggest field of Event 1 so far but its 404 count won’t stand long.

We found Ory Hen among the packed early crowd, trying to find his way into a bag for tomorrow. He’s one of the top regular players in our games and that showed when he captured the 2015 Seminole Hard Rock Player of the Year award. Hen ran all over big tournament field’s last year and went over $1 million in career earnings when he won the multi-day, $570 buy-in Event 5 during the Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open”.