$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 13: 2,000/3,000 with a 3,000 ante
Flight A Players Remaining: 46 of 243

The final break is complete and action is back underway with 46 players remaining and we’re probably looking at a hard stop with around 30 players remaining, depending on any late entries.

Jonah Miller is the new frontrunner and the only player over 300,000. That will be an average stack at the end of the day so we expect to see him have some late competition.

Top stacks and notables:

Jonah Miller – 327,000
Sean Shah – 272,000
Andrew Thompson – 268,000
Andre Rakusa – 247,000
Richard Zipes – 210,000
Seth Gilson – 188,000
Ariel Rosello – 182,000
Michael Newman – 144,000
Steven Karp – 142,000
Jason Young – 125,000
Michael Ortiz – 120,000

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 12: 1,500/2,500 with a 2,500 ante
Flight A Players Remaining: 57 of 239

Flight A players are on their final break of the day and tournament staff made an announcement before they left. They are scheduled to play 15 full levels but they will cut the day short if the field hits 12% before then.

We’ll take another opportunity to scope out the big stacks in the room and see who’s in position to bag the end-of-night lead.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 12: 1,500/2,500 with a 2,500 ante
Flight A Players Remaining: 74 of 235

The entry count is staying pretty stable at this point and it looks like we’ll be locked in right around 235 entries for the rest of the evening.

SHRP regular Ido Ashkenazi was close to being one of those forced to re-enter. He was all in with his short stack but was feeling pretty confident with aces versus queens.

Until he saw a queen in the window.

Luckily for Ashkenazi, the queen was followed by an ace to keep him in the game. He still has chips but he’s sitting on a starting stack late in the day.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 11: 1,000/2,000 with a 2,000 ante
Flight A Entries: 235

The Flight A field is slowly making its way through the latter parts of the day with few players registering and more dropping out. Those going out now seem to be waiting until tomorrow to jump back in. Chris Nomikos and the previously mentioned Wally Maddah were to of the more recent knockouts.

Michael Ortiz is cruising right along though. He’s won these big, multi-day events before including a $1 Million GTD event in both the 2014 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown and 2015 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open, each for a six-digit payout.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 10: 1,000/1,500 with a 1,500 ante
Flight A Entries: 232

Players returned from their dinner break and cards started flying once again. The tournament picked up four new entries during that time including SHRP favorite and Tampa regular Wally Maddah.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 9: 600/1,200 with a 1,200 ante
Flight A Entries: 228

There are roughly 110 players remaining and they are enjoying a 40-minute respite from the poker room. They’ll return to play six more levels before bagging up their chips.

Andre Rakusa continued to have a nice run after the last break and moved his stack up to 199,000. But they are all chasing Richard Zipes at 205,000 and it looks like a lot of that came from previous big stack Seth Gilson.

Zipes came real close to a big win in 2015 when he finished second in the 2,500-entry Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown $570 Deep Stack tournament for more than $100,000.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 9: 600/1,200 with a 1,200 ante
Flight A Entries: 228

The entry pace slowed a bit as they went into Level 9 as the 228 is still on pace to top last year’s count with two more flights to go.

Two recent entries are two of the toughest. Sean Shah owns a Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown trophy from last year and a Coco Poker Showdown victory along with both a Friday Special and Saturday Deep Stack special title.

Steven Karp does not own a SHRP trophy with three runner-up finishes to get close. But he does own some jewelry for his WSOP Circuit win in 2014.

Flight A players will run out the clock on Level 9 and take a 40-minute dinner break.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 8: 500/1,000 with a 1,000 ante
Flight A Entries: 220

We had a few more familiar faces jump into Flight A and we found three with a little success in their career.

Michael Newman already had ten SHRP victories to his credit, including three majors, before he took a big jump by winning the 2017 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open” Championship in November for nearly $350,000.

Dimitry Agrachov won our Tuesday Night Special event last summer along with several deep runs through the years. He also owns a title from the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa Winter Poker Open at our sister property on the west coast of the state.

Jason Young is still waiting for his first SHRP tournament win after migrating from the frigid Northeast. But he owns a WSOP bracelet so we guess he’s okay with that.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 7: 400/800 with a 800 ante
Flight A Entries: 208

Flight A players finished up their break away from the tables and cards went back in the air. They will play three more levels before going on a 40-minute dinner break.

Bill Farnan, the reigning Fun in the Sun Main Event champ, is your new chip leader and it’s not even close. He sits with 192,000 and his closest competitors are Andre Rakusa with 147,000 and Seth Gilson with 143,000.

There’s still plenty of time to catch Farnan and he’ll have to keep moving higher if he wants to hold the lead until the end of the night.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$150,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 6: 300/600 with a 600 ante
Flight A Entries: 204

Level 6 came to an end and player are taking their second break of the day. The count topped 200 entries and it is still climbing, even during break.

We will take another chance to walk the empty tables to update our chip leaders.