Trung Pham Conquers $1,000,000 Guarantee Event 1

2018 Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open 
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino 
Hollywood, Florida
Event 1
$360 Deep Stack (Re-Entry)
$1,000,000 Guarantee

Entries: 4,558
Prize Pool: $1,367,400
November 14-19, 2018

Trung Pham, $1,000,000 Guarantee Event 1 Champion

The 2018 Seminole Hard Rock “Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open” schedule began the two-week series with a huge $1,000,000 Guarantee opening event. The tournament turned into one of the biggest fields in Florida poker history and it drew players from around the country. Trung Pham made his way to town from Texas and will leave with the Event 1 trophy along with $123,364.

After eight starting flights over four days plus a long Day 2, the tournament was down to the last seven players when they agreed to a deal to divide up the remaining prize pool. Pham made big moves late and held the chip lead to take the title with the biggest share of the prize pool.

“I ran really great in the tournament,” Pham said of his run. “I won with jacks against kings (flopped a set), and had a big run.”

Pham made his way to South Florida when he saw the upcoming $2,000,000 WPT RRPO Championship and decided to fire the big opening event as well.

“It’s a $360 tournament with a big guarantee,” he said. “I think the field is tougher than Choctaw but it was a great tournament.”

Speaking of the Oklahoma poker room, Pham picked up his second WSOP Circuit ring two weeks ago and is on a nice heater.

“I’m doing pretty good,” Pham laughed.

The $360 buy-in tournament drew a combined 4,558 entries over the eight starting flights to push the prize pool up to $1,367,400. It produced the third biggest tournament field in state history and Flight G’s 1,014 entries created the second biggest single day (after Day 1 of the 2017 WPT Showdown Champions with 1,207).

Of those 4,558 entries, 676 players advanced to Day 2 with 450 of them set to earn some money. The action was fast and Event 1 was in money well before the first break of Day 2. There was a double elimination on the money bubble with Roberto Alberro and James Gavin splitting a min-cash.

From there, Day 2 came to an end at 3am with 16 players still remaining. Devond Marshall returned for the extra day with the chip lead and stayed among the leaders as the final table formed with ten players.

Several players took their turn at the top but Pham stormed ahead late when he knocked David Maslowski out in eighth place. He held on through James Lloyd’s elimination when the last seven players made the agreement to divide the remaining prize pool giving him the big win.

Congratulations to Pham for the title after a long week of poker and thank you to all of our players for a great start to the series.

Event 1 final table results:

1st: Trung Pham – $123,364 *
2nd: Devond Marshall – $109,854 *
3rd: Kharlin Sued – $106,611 *
4th: Carlos Loving – $102,888 *
5th: David Laufer – $101,146 *
6th: Pavlos Kasselouris – $72,443 *
7th: Lorell Pascual – $68,787 *
8th: James Lloyd – $25,927
9th: David Maslowski – $15,725
10th: Rick Boyle – $10,563
* – denotes results of seven-way deal