$570 No Limit Hold’em Re-Entry
Level 7: 250/500 with a 75 Ante
Flight 1C Entries: 444

Ido Ashkenazi did not have a big stack at the first break but he’s quickly moving in the right direction. He was under 10,000 after two hours but built it up to 40,000 when he mixed it up with a player to his left.

They put the chips in the middle with Ashkenazi holding the best of it wit against but he had a small sweat after the flop. His aces held to move him near 80,000 midway through the day.

Ashkenazi captured a Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown trophy, winning the $570 Double Black Chip Bounty tournament after beating Will “The Thrill” Failla heads up.

$570 No Limit Hold’em Re-Entry
Level 6: 200/300 with a 50 Ante
Flight 1C Entries: 415

Flight C crossed over 380 entrants shortly after the first break to become the biggest starting session of Event 9 and they crossed 400 in no time. The tournament is more than halfway to the $1 million guaranteed prize pool with bigger action to come.

Kathy Liebert is participating in some Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown action for the first time this series. As one of the most successful poker players in the world (male or female), she adds a big element to the tournament. Liebert has more than $6 million in career earnings, over two dozen tournament victories, and a WSOP bracelet in the 2004 $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout. Her biggest cash was a cool $1 million during the 2002 Party Poker Million Cruise.

$570 No Limit Hold’em Re-Entry
Level 5: 150/300 with a 50 Ante
Flight 1C Entries: 365

We found some big stacks at the first break in tournaments this series, but popular local Luis Santoni might have topped them all. He started the day with a 20,000 starting stack like everyone else then sextupled that stack (look it up) to 125,000 in two hours. Santoni is the only player holding a full barrel of 5K chips.

Table 27 is going to have a rough time today. Santoni is sitting in the middle of a four-player lineup that includes Sheddy Siddiqui, Joe Reddick, and Greg Marcus.

Ramon Munez is a distant second with 68,000 and we’ll keep an eye to see who can catch Santoni, the 1995 Legends of Poker Champion.

Top stacks and notables:

Luis Santoni – 125,000 (417 bb)
Ramon Munez – 68,000 (227 bb)
Dan Griggs – 62,600 (209 bb)
John Pappas – 60,025 (200 bb)
Marco Chan – 53,925 (180 bb)
Sheddy Siddiqui – 35,975 (120 bb)
Tony March – 28,150 (94 bb)
Nancy Birnbaum – 25,625 (85 bb)
Jeff Kessler – 25,075 (84 bb)
Andre Crooks – 23,150 (77 bb)
Howard Mash – 23,125 (77 bb)
Mike Beasley – 22,550 (75 bb)
Wally Maddah – 21,275 (71 bb)
John Holley – 20,000 (67 bb)
Greg Marcus – 19,075 (64 bb)
Joe Reddick – 17,050 (57 bb)
John Depersio – 16,675 (56 bb)
Abbey Daniels – 15,425 (51 bb)
Jason Gooch – 14,200 (47 bb)
Chad Eveslage – 13,625 (45 bb)

$570 No Limit Hold’em Re-Entry
Level 4: 100/200 with a 25 Ante
Flight 1C Entries: 320

Players are heading off on their first break of the day with more than 300 entrants in the game and more than two hours to register.

We’ll take a quick walk through the big field to track down our big stack and interesting names.

$570 No Limit Hold’em Re-Entry
Level 4: 100/200 with a 25 Ante
Flight 1C Entries: 285

The cascading, exponential effects of a big-field re-entry tournament are showing themselves this afternoon. Players are firing back into the $1 Million Guarantee at the same time new players are making their way for their first buy-in.

Flight C saw 60 new entrants, two per minute, over the last level and we should hit 300 entrants before the first break of the day.

Andre Crooks is here in early action and can add to his big list of Seminole Hard Rock Poker results. His two biggest scores came here with a third place finish during last year’s WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship and a runner-up finish in the $1,100 tournament two years earlier.

$570 No Limit Hold’em Re-Entry
Level 3: 75/150 with a 25 Ante
Flight 1C Entries: 225

Flight C reached 225 entrants before the clock hit noon and we are looking to make this one the biggest flight of the tournament so far. The magic number is 380 to surpass the entrant count from yesterday afternoon and it’s looking good.

Jeff Kessler is one of our morning entrants and coming off a chopped up victory a few weeks ago. He already owned a Seniors Event trophy from the 2013 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open” series and came close to winning another at a recent WSOP Circuit event with a fifth place finish, though he tells us he technically won since he had the biggest stack when a deal was stroke.

$570 No Limit Hold’em Re-Entry
Level 2: 50/100
Flight 1C Entries: 180

It’s another fast, early pace for a morning flight and a little twitch in the matrix. The morning/afternoon sessions were traditionally the smallest of the multi-day flights but we’ve been trending the other way this series. Most players used to like sleeping in but now they’re rising and shining.

Either way, guarantees are getting crushed.

We found Howard Mash in today’s field at the start, the man who went two-for-two in September. He was getting some Coco Poker Open action in September when he won the Heads Up tournament on the 27th, then turned around and won the $130 No Limit Hold’em event on the 28th.

$570 No Limit Hold’em Re-Entry
Level 1: 25/50

The 2016 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown is rolling into the second weekend of the series and today’s main schedule features nothing but players aiming to get a piece of a $1 million prize pool.

The next two flights of Event 9 run today as the $570 buy-in tournament climbs closer to reaching that $1 million guaranteed prize pool. Yesterday saw 713 combined entrants take their shot with 129 advancing to play Day 2 on Sunday. Joshua Hood holds a big lead over the field but there are four more flights of players trying to catch him.

Entrants begin with 20,000 starting stacks and play 30-minute levels throughout the day. The registration desk is open for Flight C until the start of Level 9 at 3:30pm and unlimited re-entries are available during that time. Play will conclude at the end of Level 14 and anyone still with chips will bag them up for a Sunday Day 2 return.

Early-start players are in their seats and about to get underway.

Combined chip counts through Flight B

• $1,000,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool
• Players begin with 20,000 in chips and 30-minute levels
• Late registration/re-entry available until start of Level 9
• Day 1 will end after Level 14 or Tournament Director discretion
• Event 9 Structure Sheet

$570 No Limit Hold’em Deep Stack Re-Entry
Level 14: 1,200/2,400 with a 400 ante
Flight 1B Entrants: 334
Players Remaining: 58

After 14 levels of play, Day 1B of the $570 No Limit Hold’em Deep Stack Re-Entry event is in the books and Joshua Hood leads the field.

Hood bagged a massive chip lead to lead the remaining 58 players after finishing the day with 389,500 in chips. Joining Hood at the top of the 1B counts are Joe Marchese, Derek Encenarro and Raminder Singh with 225,500, 210,000 and 203,500 in chip, respectively.

Other notables to make it through the day include Mukul Pahuja, David Diaz, Wendy Freedman, Erik Christensen, Ryan Dunn, John Dolan and Hans Winzeler.

By the time late registration closed, there were 334 entries in the field. Combined with the 379 in Day 1A, there are currently 713 entrants with another four starting flights left to be played. The survivors of both flights today will come back on Sunday at 1 p.m. to play Day 2 of this event.

Day 1C and 1D get underway on Friday. SHRPO.com will have coverage of the action.

$570 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 10: 500/1,000 with a 100 ante
Players Remaining: 153 of 334

T.K. Miles opened to 2,300 under the gun, and there were two callers in position. From the small blind, Mike Wetcher three-bet to 10,000, and Miles moved all in for less than a starting stack. The two players in the middle folded, and Wetcher called the small remainder to put Miles at risk.

Miles:
Wetcher:

The board ran out , and Wetcher won the pot with two pair. Miles was eliminated from Day 1B.

Mike Wetcher – 160,000 (160 bb)
T.K. Miles – Eliminated