SHRPO Update: The First of Two Seven-Figure Plus Guarantees a Rousing Success
The Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open’s tournament directors were naively optimistic in thinking that Event #8 – $560 buy-in NLHE, $1 Million Guaranteed would reach its conclusion in just two tournament days.
Perhaps if the tournament only managed to scrape by its lofty guarantee, then yes, two days would have sufficed. But if we’ve learned anything in the past two years, no SHRPO event just barely manages to meet its minimum threshold.
Smash, obliterate, crush. These are the words that more suitably describe what is being done to the 2014 SHRPO’s guaranteed prize pools, and Event #8 proved no exception.
The series biggest tournament event to date would draw a staggering 2,767 runners in creating a $1,383,500 prize pool – or a cool 38.4 % more than what was necessary for the house to dodge an overlay.
Although preliminary Event #1 would eclipse Event #8’s player pool by more than 100, the latter’s moderately higher buy-in would create a substantially larger prize pool ($517,000 more).
And after three grueling levels of play, which included an extra day not shown on the schedule, one young Floridian grinder with nary a $20,000 score to his credit would walk away almost $240,000 richer.
Event #8 Recap
Leading Up To The Final Table
After a nearly unprecedented six starting flights spread over the course of three days, only 532 players of the original 2,700+ field would survive to play on Day 2.
On Day 2 the knockouts would come fast and furious, only slowing down as the tournament approached the ominous bubble. In total, 250 runners, or about 9 % of the field, would receive at least a minimum cash for their efforts, meaning more than half the returning Day 2 field would go home with nothing more than an exaggerated bad beat story and presumably, a nasty case of exhaustion.
Those who made a deep run would grind out 17 40 minute levels on Day 2, equating to just over 11 hours of poker. And that’s before breaks were factored in.
The tournament would finally break at 3 AM, when tournament directors allowed the remaining 10 runners to bag and tag their chips and get what probably amounted to a turbulent night of sleep.
Play would resume at 2 pm on Monday.
The Final Table
Only the chip leader, who preferred to remain anonymous (was it Daniel Colman?), would start Day 3 with more than 50 big blinds. And it wouldn’t take long for him to amass an even bigger lead after taking out second biggest stack Tyler McKendry in ninth place.
McKendry would get it in good, but a turned set would be his undoing, costing him the chip lead and any chance to land a six figure score. Hey, no one said poker wasn’t a cruel game.
Daniel Griffiths would go out in eighth in what amounted to a pre-flop cooler (AQ < KK). David Castronova would follow him shortly out the door in seventh when his pocket tens couldn’t stand the heat of Riley Fuller’s Kings. Castronova’s departure would mark the third knockout in a span of twenty minutes.
It would be the man known as A-nonymous who would bluff off the chip lead and soon after be eliminated in sixth place. Our masked hero received 57,166 not-to-anonymous dollars for his performance.
Derrick Simon would crack Riley Fuller’s bullets before succumbing in fifth place. A river Queen would do Simon in, but hey, at least he can tell his friends that he went out in dramatic fashion.
Aggro young gun Stephen Jones would shove, eh…nine-four off-suit, only to be looked up by Fuller’s pocket aces. The board would run clean, and Jones was out the door in fourth, picking up more than $86,500 in the process.
Then there were three.
While each of the remaining players would be guaranteed at least $100,000, the $148,000 pay jump between third and first kept tensions in the room high. Over the course of the next hour, players would find themselves jockey for position, with no one runner asserting true dominance.
After a few more orbits it would be Riley Fuller that would amass a sizable chip advantage, only to dump a portion of it back to Adam Zimowski when Fuller’s top pair failed to improved against Zimowski’s flopped trips.
But Fuller would get the last laugh, his Ace-three flopping Zimowski’s King-ten nearly dead after the two went all-in pre. Zimowski would have to console himself with a $101,756 payday.
Heads-Up
Fuller held a massive chip advantage over Adam Rouse leading into heads-up play. It was one that he would not relinquish.
On the final hand of the three day affair, Fuller would open to 2.5 mm on the button before Rouse announced that he was all-in. Fuller’s chips would practically teleport into the middle, as he quickly revealed K-K. That wouldn’t be the best news for Rouse who held K-4.
The flop bricked out for Rouse, and although the turn provided some chop outs, it wasn’t meant to be.
Rouse would receive $155,382 for his runner-up efforts – just a mere 277 times his initial investment, and Riley would be pronounced the winner. Along with nearly a quarter million in prize money, Fuller would receive a SHRPO trophy, and a custom framed photograph memorializing his victory.
And thus concluded the biggest event at this year’s SHRPO thus far. But the best is still yet to come.
Other SHRPO News
- Event #5 – a $150 NLHE reentry tournament featuring a $150,000 prize pool would draw 2,159 runners in creating a $259k prize pool. Notable about the tournament is that talks of a chop began when there was still 18 players remaining. Astoundingly, the final nine would not play a single hand, chopping up over $163,000 in prize money. Alan Goodman held the chip lead going into the final table, and would walk away as the “winner.”
- It appears that PokerStars will be taking a more vested interest in the SHPRO Main Event than originally expected. Just a week after announcing that it would allow direct buy-ins to the main via its PokerStars.com site, the online gambling behemoth will allegedly be streaming the $10 million guaranteed final table live on PokerStars.tv. Just what does PokerStars have planned for the Seminole Hard Rock: A potential sponsorship deal? A rebranding deal that would see PokerStars hold its sponsored tournaments in the United States? A potential iGaming partner? In either case, it’s probably something big.
- The $5,300 buy-in SHRPO Main Event will kick off with Day 1A at noon EST on August 28th. That’s this Thursday for those who wish to mark their calendar.
