$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 13: 1,000/2,000 with a 300 ante
Day 1A Players Remaining: 81 of 326

Al Gomez was looking at an early end to his day. He was moved to a table at the front of the room and sat with only 8,000.

“I’m on one bullet today,” Gomez commented.

“This is it,” he said pointing at his stack.

But that wasn’t the end, he has since pushed his stack better than ten-fold higher and caught a nice hand for a triple.

An opponent three-bet shoved with and it was an easy call for Gomez with . To juice up the pot, a middle position player came along with .

Gomez saw bad news on the flop but he came from behind on the turn. That card also gave the tens a lot of outs with a flush draw, open-ended straight draw but it didn’t get there on the river.

A big hand that pushed Gomez’ stack over 87,000.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 12: 800/1,600 with a 200 ante
Day 1A Players Remaining: 99 of 326

Flight A is back in action and the next stop is the end-of-day bagging process. The average stack is still above 40 big blinds but they are getting them in the middle often.

Jennifer Parker continues to lead the opening session with more than 260,000 and a few players without shouting distance.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 11: 600/1,200 with a 200 ante
Day 1A Players Remaining: 99 of 326

Players are taking their final break of the flight, a quick 10-minute jaunt to the hallways with less than 100 players remaining of the starting 326.

They’ll return to blinds at 800/1,600 with a 200 ante and the average stack around 66,000.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 10: 500/1,000 with a 100 ante
Day 1A Players Remaining: 135 of 326

The Flight A field is quickly shrinking after they closed up registration. Less than half of the starting entrants are still around and Matt Yorra got them one player shorter.

There were four players to a flop of and his opponent moved all-in for his last 18,700. Yorra quickly moved all-in behind for 46,200. This caused the other two player to take a long, hard think before they eventually let their hands go.

Yorra tabled and his opponent’s head dropped.

“That’s pretty much the worst case scenario,” he said when he flipped over .

Instead of a flush draw/gutshot draw, he was looking for a non-heart four to stay alive.

The board finished and to send Yorra up to 120,000.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 9: 400/800 with a 100 ante
Total Day 1A Players: 326

Players are back in their seats after the second break of the day and registration is officially closed for the first flight. A total of 326 entries puts Event 1 well ahead of the pace needed to crush the $500,000 guaranteed prize pool.

We were going to speak of Ido Ashkenazi and his pre-break big hand. He knocked someone out and took a ton off another player when his held against and . The hand moved Ashkenazi up near 80,000 but it didn’t last long.

We went to grab a pic of the man after the break only to find him shaking his head and hitting the rail. His quick exit came at the hands of Jennifer Parker when his full house was crushed by her bigger boat. The hand moved Parker up to 287,000 and she is the clear leader with six more levels to play in the flight.

Parker has only one recorded tournament cash, but it was a nice one. She finished 19th out of 819 players two weeks ago during the 2016 WSOP Ladies Championship.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 8: 300/600 with a 75 ante
Total Day 1A Players: 324

Level 8 is soon coming to an end leaving players with only a little time remaining to get into the early flight.

Marty Robbins is one of the players to push us over 300 after the first break. Robbins has a handful of SHR Poker final tables and picked up his biggest cash last year during the 2015 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open. He final tabled the massive $150 buy-in Event 5 and was the second biggest stack when they made a five-handed deal

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 7: 250/500 with a 75 ante
Total Day 1A Players: 299

While Brian Phillis had a huge finish last year in the SHRPO Championship, Dan Suied has big success in this very tournament.

The self-proclaimed “Miami Boss” doesn’t play many tournaments but comes out for the big field, big money events. Suied entered Event 1 two years ago during the 2014 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open and took home the trophy after a four-way chop, earning $110,000 along the way.

Suied is relaxing in the front of the room and aiming for another SHRPO Event 1 victory.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 6: 200/400 with a 50 ante
Total Day 1A Players: 290

The entrant count continues to move up towards 300 for the first flight and we should easily get there plus some.

Brian Phillis is back in the room where he earned his biggest poker payout. Well, he started in the ballroom and finished in front of the Hard Rock Live cameras. He was part of the $5 Million GTD SHRPO Championship and outlasted all but one player.

Phillis finished second last year to Omar Zazay after a long heads up battle. He took home $575,000 for his second place finish and would be very happy to improve his result this year for a cool $1 million.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 5: 150/300 with a 50 ante
Total Day 1A Players: 275

Players are back in their seats after the quick break and we’re seeing big early stacks. Jorge Del Busto is the clear front runner after four levels, his 87,750 outpacing David Nathaniel who is closing on 80,000 from his 20,000 starting stack.

Top stacks and notable counts:

Jorge Del Busto – 87,750 (293 bb)
David Nathaniel – 79,500 (265 bb)
Alexander Daranyi – 69,000 (230 bb)
Carlos Guerrero – 63,775 (213 bb)
Efthimios Pipe – 62,800 (209 bb)
Peter Striano – 60,950 (203 bb)
Ido Ashkenazi – 36,575 (122 bb)
Ory Hen – 35,675 (119 bb)
Martin Carnero – 26,400 (88 bb)
Nancy Thomas – 19,975 (67 bb)
Marsha Wolak – 19,200 (64 bb)

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
End of Level 4: 100/200 with a 25 ante
Total Day 1A Players: 252

Flight A hit its first break of the day with more than 250 entrants registered so far. They still have four more levels, plus the second 15-minute break, to get in early action.

We’ll take this opportunity to track down our early leaders and big stacks.