$2,200 Six-Max No Limit Hold’em (Freezeout)
Level 8: 250/500/75 Ante

Level 8 has been completed and the players are on their final break of the night.  30 players are still alive and the roster of players is like a who’s who in poker.

Barry Hutter, Jared Jaffee, Jason Mercier, Darryll Fish, Joe Kuether, Noah Schwartz, Jake Schwartz, Ory Hen, Shannon Shorr, Brian Hastings, Carter Gill, Ravi Raghavan, Chance Kornuth, Matt Stout, Cliff Goldkind, Kevin Schulz, Scott Efron, Matt Waxman and Jacob Bazeley all have chips in front of them heading into the last two hours of play.

This field has quite a wow factor and we’ll see who can get to Day 2 in a little while.

$2,200 Six-Max No Limit Hold’em (Freezeout)
Level 8: 250/500/75 Ante

Players have just hit Level 8 as we now have three hours remaining to play tonight.  34 players remain as these players battle it out for the chance to return tomorrow for Day 2 and the top prize of $53,920.

$2,200 Six-Max No Limit Hold’em (Freezeout)
Level 7: 200/400/50 Ante

Tournaments here at Seminole Hard Rock-Hollywood tend to have a very large amount of women playing in them as opposed to other areas of the country.  But tonight’s Event 15 was the exception.

The last woman standing, Raquel Abut, was actually the first one too as she was only one who entered out of the entire field of players.

Abut is in great shape right now sitting at 41,500 chips as she looks to advance to Day 2 and outplay the boys here in Event 15.

$2,200 Six-Max No Limit Hold’em (Freezeout)
Level 6: 150/300/50 Ante

Even though the field in shrinking, the amount of comedy duos in the house is growing here in Event 15.

The new team of Ory Hen and Noah Schwartz may be sweeping the nation as the two of them have been having great conversations all night.  And after one particular round where Hen accused Joe Kuether of doing unspeakable acts to him during his time at the table, the usually stoic Kuether actually cracked a rare smile at the table.

There was even some poker at the table too as Schwartz managed a double up through Meng Chao Yu as the short-stacked Schwartz’s held against Yu’s .

In the meantime it appears Chance Kornuth has replaced Jared Jaffee with Matt Stout on his quest for a comedy gig.  You can hear the laughter coming across the room as the two of them have been whooping it up since Stout arrived.

$2,200 Six-Max No Limit Hold’em (Freezeout)
Level 6: 150/300/50 Ante

Check out this photo gallery of the notables still playing in Event 15 at the Seminole Hard Rock Lucky Hearts Poker Open.

$2,200 Six-Max No Limit Hold’em (Freezeout)
Level 6: 150/300/50 Ante

Florida native and former WPT champion Matt Waxman was joined by fellow Floridians Jason Mercier and Scott Zakheim after their table broke and the table chat which also included Cliff Goldkind has been unparalled.

From appropriate age spreads for dating to the seven virtues, the poker became secondary as players at the table were firing jabs back and forth making this one of the more entertaining tables we’ve seen in this series so far.

One player in not such a chipper mood is Jonathan Duhamel who was eliminated at another table and was seen headed out of the ballroom.

42 players remain here in Event 15 as we have now passed the halfway point of Day 1.

$2,200 Six-Max No Limit Hold’em (Freezeout)
Level 5: 100/200/25 Ante

Aaron Massey moved all in preflop on the button and the cutoff called. The two players then tabled their hands.

Massey:
Cutoff:

Board:

Massey was eliminated on the hand and that is it for his run in this tournament.

$2,200 Six-Max No Limit Hold’em (Freezeout)
Level 5: 100/200/25 Ante

We joined in a hand with Scott Zakheim taking on Jake Schindler with a board.  Zakheim had put Schindler all-in. Jake just couldn’t decide what to do and went in the tank.

In the meantime, Jason Mercier had was really stuggling with the near seven-minute wait.  He had a much harder time dealing with the passage of the time considering the other two players at the table, Uri Kadosh and John Dolan, were both fortunate enough to be receiving massages at the time.

Eventually, Mercier called the clock and as the countdown nearly started Schindler called and showed and Zakheim turned over for the flopped two pair.  Another ten came on the turn giving Schindler more outs but he bricked the river and was out the door.

Mercier, whose goatee may have grown two more inches during the wait, said he hated to call the clock because he “plays 100k’s with the guy” but just couldn’t take it anymore.

The elimination takes the field down to 54 out of the 94 entrants in Event 15.