The second Day 1 flight for the $3,500 World Poker Tour Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open drew 792 entrants to the Grand Ballroom and advanced 276 players to Sunday’s Day 2. After ten levels of action Peter Fellows leads the field after finishing with 528,000.
Confident chip leader
“By the look of my stack I’d say my day went pretty well,“ Fellows said. “I got lucky in some spots and one particular hand with pocket fives.” He flopped a set against two opponents where one had a flush draw and top pair and the other had ace king with a paired king. All players were in on the turn, the river bricked and his set held.
“That vaulted me from about 180,000 to over 500,000,” he said. “It’s another day at the office. I’m probably going to the WPT player party tonight, socialize for a little bit and then go home and get some rest. I’ll recharge the battery, do a little homework and some studying. Hopefully, I come back tomorrow, make the money and go deep.”
Field combines for $4.6 million prize pool
Friday and Saturday’s Day 1 flights combined for 1,447 total entrants and juiced the prize pool to north of $4.6 million. There were 237 advancing players from Day 1A, making the Day 2 field 513 players strong.
Alex Foxen, Erkut Yilmaz, Chance Kornuth, Dietrich Fast, Eric Afriat, Loni Hui and David “the Dragon” Pham each put chips in the big to return for Day 2 on Sunday.
ClubWPT qualifier Imran Iqbal played in just his fourth live tournament. “I had a pretty good experience. The players were nice but tough,” he said. His final hand came when in a set over set situation before the dinner break.
“It was a good experience, my brother made the trip with me,” he added. “He likes to play cash so he’s over there now. Iqbal planned to walk off the bad beat and hopefully play cards with his brother later.
Tony Burns served as tournament director for the Seminole Hard Rock brand but took a huge gamble on himself this year. He joined Chris Moneymaker to head up the Moneymaker Poker Tour.
All summer long poker media waxed poetic about the “Summer of Chance” when Kornuth earned $3.6 million on the Las Vegas Strip. But a better descriptor would be the “Year of Chance.”
What they're playing for
The total prize pool came in at $4,630,400 and will pay out the top 181 finishers. The min-cash comes in at $5,700, a trip to the final table locks up $94,500 and winner earns $752,500 plus a seat to the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.
Cards hit the air for Day 2 on Sunday at noon, they’ll play ten levels and expected to hit the money around the dinner break. The tournament is scheduled for five days with the live streamed final table starting at 2:00pm on Wednesday, November 29th.
Top Five Chip Counts
- Peter Fellows – 528,000
- Kenny Han – 446,000
- Guy Naimi – 421,000
- Michael Stashin – 394,500
- Federico Molina – 394,000
