$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 14: 1,200/2,400 with a 400 ante
Flight A Players Remaining: 90 of 424

Flight A players are in the last level of their day with ten tables running and stacks moving up including SHRP regular Elliott Zaydman closing on 200,000.

They’ll play through this level and those with chips will bag them up for a return on Sunday for Day 2.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 12: 800/1,600 with a 200 ante
Flight A Players Remaining: 126 of 424

The Flight A field continues to shrink at a steady pace but we still have more than 120 around with a few more levels to go.

Asher Conniff, Jon Borenstein, and Marsha Wolak are a few who will have to take a shot in a later flight but Jessica Dawley, Nancy Thomas, and 2015 WSOP Ladies Champion Jacquelyn Scott (pictured above) are still grinding away in the ballroom.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 11: 600/1,200 with a 200 ante
Flight A Players Remaining: 144 of 424

Players are well into the 11th level of the day and they will soon be on their final break of the day. Less than 150 players remain of the starting 424 entries including SHRP regular Francis Margaglione.

Margaglione already own two SHRP titles, two from the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open series and one from the “Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open”. That last one saw him outlast nearly 1,500 other entries in the $150 multi-day event to take the title.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 10: 500/1,000 with a 100 ante
Flight A Players Remaining: 206 of 424

The books are closed on Flight A and the official number of entries stands at 424 after all the accounting is complete. That makes this flight better than 50 entries higher than last year and we expect bigger fields to come.

One of the last entries this afternoon was Seminole Hard Rock team member Jessica Dawley. The laid-back pro has booked more than $400,000 in career earnings including her biggest right here during the 2015 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open” with a sixth place finish in the Championship for a cool $110,000.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 9: 400/800 with a 100 ante
Flight A Entries: 420

Registration closed on the opening flight of Event 1 and it drew a big crowd. Unofficially, the count stands at 420 as the big brains do the final accounting but it’s already over Flight A of this tournament last year. Event 1 Flight A drew 370 entries in the 2016 opener on the way to a $800,000 prize pool. A very good sign that we’ll go even bigger this year.

Former WPT World Champion Asher Conniff was a late entrant and he’s peacefully grinding in the former seat of Lou Stadler. He was already well known around the Northeast poker crowd before he stormed onto the world stage in 2015. Conniff won the huge first event during the 2015 Borgata Spring Poker Open for $200,000 and finished off the series by winning the last-ever WPT World Championship for another $973,000 and change.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 8: 300/600 with a 75 ante
Flight A Entries: 386

The entrant count is racing towards 400 and they’ve already surpassed the number from last year’s opening flight that set them on the path to a $800,000 prize pool.

Level 8 is underway and the last chance for players to jump in this flight. But they still have five more shots with the next flight running at 6pm this evening.

We located our first member of the Seminole Hard Rock Poker team getting in the action. WPT Season XII Player of the Year Mukul Pahuja joined the fun this afternoon and is down to the serious business of winning a title. Pahuja won his WPT honors with a year that included nearly $1.5 million earnings in WPT events alone with five cashes and three final tables.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 6: 200/400 with a 50 ante
Flight A Entries: 350

Players continue to pile into the ballroom to run up the first flight count including Jon Borenstein fresh off a plane from WPT Cali-swing events.

Borenstein is back in town looking to continue a nice string of results in sunny South Florida. Along with Lou Stadler mentioned earlier, Borenstein final tabled this event last year taking third place money for nearly $60,000. He also went deep in the $10,000 WPT Finale to wrap up that series and he made the $2,650 Freeze-out final table during the inaugural Big 4 during the 2015 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open, all included in his more than $750,000 in career earnings.

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 5: 150/300 with a 50 ante
Flight A Entries: 325

Players are back in their seats after the first break and the entry count jumped well over 300 before their return.

Aaron Gordon is the clear front-runner in early action after more than tripling his 20,000 starting stack in the first two hours. Jonathan Harris is not far behind with plenty of time and ten more levels to catch the leaders.

Top stacks:

Aaron Gordon – 63,100 (210 bb)
Jonathan Harris – 60,550 (202 bb)
Carmelo Manrique Huizi – 59,000 (197 bb)
Stephen Ekin – 56,000 (187 bb)
John Magnetta – 50,550 (169 bb)
Eddie Vehara – 49,700 (166 bb)
Frank Nerat – 48,925 (163 bb)
Courtland Twyman – 48,300 (161 bb)
John Cofhlin – 44,300 (148 bb)
Raymond Winters – 44,000 (147 bb)
Iman Dan – 43,300 (144 bb)
Anthony Barbera – 43,000 (143 bb)
Diane Schmidt – 43,000 (143 bb)
Joviel Gonzalez – 42,000 (140 bb)
Jacobo Fernandez – 42,000 (140 bb)

$360 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 4: 100/200 with a 25 ante
Flight A Entries: 294

Flight A players are on their first break of the day only a few new entries away from hitting 300.

We’ll take this first opportunity with an empty room to take a look at stacks and find some big ones.