$300 Deep Stack No-Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry) Flight A $75,000 Guarantee | Structure Level 14: 1,500/3,000 with a 3,000 ante Players Remaining: 34 of 211
The player on the button raised all in for about 35,000 and Scott Swatscheno called from the big blind with , racing with his opponent’s .
The board ran out , safe for Swatscheno to score the elimination.
$300 Deep Stack No-Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry) Flight B $75,000 Guarantee | Structure Level 1: 100/100 Entries: 71
Event 1 Flight B is underway. Among those in the field at the start include Michael Tait, Raminder Singh, Robert Transue, Carlos Rodriguez and Pasquale Caiazza.
Registration closes at the start of Level 9 (about 10:30 p.m.) and the day will conclude after the completion of Level 14 (about 1:45 a.m.)
$300 Deep Stack No-Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry) Flight A $75,000 Guarantee | Structure Level 13: 1,500/2,500 with a 2,500 ante Players Remaining: 34 of 211
Scott Swatscheno – 330,000 Alan Gold – 270,000 Marsha Wolak – 190,000 Iso Ashkenazi – 187,000 Georges Boyadjian – 135,000 Marc Sacheli – 52,000
$300 Deep Stack No-Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry) Flight A $75,000 Guarantee | Structure Level 13: 1,500/2,500 with a 2,500 ante Players Remaining: 36 of 211
Scott Swatscheno raised to 5,000 from early position, a player in middle position three-bet to 11,000, Swatscheno four-bet to 30,000, the middle-position player five-bet shoved for about 110,000 and Swatscheno called with , leading his opponent’s .
The board ran out , safe for Swatscheno to score the elimination.
$300 Deep Stack No-Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry) Flight A $75,000 Guarantee | Structure Level 12: 1,000/2,000 with a 2,000 ante Players Remaining: 48 of 211
The players have returned from their final break of the flight and Scott Swatscheno is the chip leader with 243,000.
Play will end following the conclusion of Level 14.
$300 Deep Stack No-Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry) Flight A $75,000 Guarantee | Structure Level 11: 800/1,600 with a 1,600 ante Players Remaining: 55 of 211
Following a flop of , a player in middle position was all in for 26,800 with for a pair of kings against Carlos Rodriguez on the button who held .
The turn and river completed the board, giving Rodriguez’s opponent trip kings to double up. Down to about 31,000, Rodriguez busted shortly thereafter.
At a nearby table, with a min-raise to 3,200 and a three-bet to 7,000 in front of him, Pasquale Caiazza four-bet all in for about 65,000 from the button. Scott Swatscheno, the initial raiser, isolated the pot with , trailing Caiazza’s .
The board came down , giving Swatscheno a set of kings to score the elimination.
Scott Swatscheno – 205,000 Carlos Rodriguez – Eliminated Pasquale Caiazza – Eliminated
$300 Deep Stack No-Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry) Flight A $75,000 Guarantee | Structure Level 10: 600/1,200 with a 1,200 ante Players Remaining: 81 of 211
Ido Ashkenazi – 155,000 David Moreno – 99,000 Georges Boyadjian – 95,000 Marc Sacheli – 94,000 Dave Inselberg – 83,000 Eli Levy – 36,000 Scott Zakheim – 35,000 James Salmon – 35,000 Carlos Rodriguez – 35,000 Marsha Wolak – 33,000 Scott Baumstein – 24,500 Paul Domb – 18,500 James Hamburger – 9,000
2019 Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood, Florida Event 1 $400 Deep Stack NLH (Re-Entry) $1,000,000 Guarantee Entries: 4,699 Prize Pool: $1,579,640 November 20-24, 2018
The 2019 Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open got off to a fantastic start with 4,699 entries in Event 1, and on Monday afternoon, the final six players agreed to split the remaining prizepool based on the ICM values of their chip stacks.
Ben Boston had the most chips and was declared the winner, earning the title and the trophy, along with $133,918.
“It feels great,” said Boston. “I’ve toyed around with tournaments a little bit over the years, but I never really took them seriously. I’m a cash game player.”
Boston hasn’t been to Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood in quite a few years, and the property has changed a lot since then, culminating in the grand opening of the new Guitar Hotel, which just opened last month.
But something about this event got Boston’s attention, and he flew in from Los Angeles to play it.
“I wasn’t expecting to win anything,” said Boston. “It’s a $400 coin flip into a field of almost 5,000 people. Of course I thought I was torching the $400. But why not?”
Thanks to their deal, the final six players all earned at least $114,000 each, which is 285x their $400 buy-in.
The biggest story from this event was the amazing comeback of Pedro Catinchi, who was knocked down to a single chip — just 1/4 of the big blind — before the dinner break on Day 2. But Catinchi managed to climb out of that hole, and when Day 2 came to an end with 13 players remaining, Catinchi bagged up the chip lead.
It took another three hours of play on Monday afternoon to get from 13 players down to six, and after playing six-handed for a while, that’s when they agreed to a deal.
At that point, Catinchi was just two chips behind Boston for the lead — 1/6 of a big blind. While Catinchi doesn’t get the full worst-to-first credit that would have come with a victory, it’s still an epic comeback, and an incredible ending to the first event of the 2019 Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open.
Final Table Results:
1st: Ben Boston – $133,918 + RRPO Trophy 2nd: Pedro Catinchi – $133,776 3rd: Song O. – $128,869 4th: Ronald Campillo – $119,432 5th: Brian Mancilla – $116,143 6th: John Two-Bears – $114,897 7th: Richard Leger – $39,605 8th: Stuart Hankin – $27,625 9th: Leif Force – $16,440