Two starting flights and Day 2 are all in the books at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship in Hollywood, Florida and just 101 players remain out of the original 1,869 entries. Leading the way heading into Day 3 is Josh Reichard, who holds 3.1 million chips.
Though Reichard is the only player to finish Day 2 above the 3 million-chip mark, it’s as pretty good race at the top of the leaderboard. Close behind Reichard is Michael Rocco with 2.975 million chips, followed by Matthew Higgins with 2.765 million and Jackob Datashvili with 2.730 million. After those four players, the chip counts spread out more – there is about 1.3 million-chip spread between 1st and 10th place.
Reichard has an extensive live tournament resume, with total earnings of $3.2 million. His best live cash was for $339,646, when he finished 2nd in last year’s $1,000 Mini Main Event at the World Series of Poker. He is still seeking his first World Poker Tour title.
Everyone remaining is guaranteed at least $9,600 on their $3,500 buy-in. Six-figure paydays go down to 8th place, while the winner will cash for $839,300.
One of the nuttiest hands of Sunday’s action was something that you would expect to find in a movie. Balakrishna Patur raised pre-flop to 25,000, Anthony Spinella called, and Shlomo Gardi went all-in for 317,000.
Patur then went all-in over the top for 400,000 and Spinella made the call for his tournament life. When the cards were flipped over, the view was wild: Patur had Aces, Gardi had Kings, and Spinella had Jacks.
The flop was all hearts, only helping Gardi, as it gave him a flush draw. The turn was meaningless, but the river brought another King, giving Gardi a set and a massive triple-up. Patur took the small side pot. After the hand, both Spinella and Gardi had over 900,000 chips.
I should revise my earlier statement about it being a hand out of a movie. The hole cards worked well for that, but if this was fictional poker, more than just Gardi would have hit something on the board, OR…they wouldn’t have all been all-in pre-flop. The drama would have built up through the flop, turn, and river. Pretty exciting hand, though, especially because it wasn’t manufactured.
2024 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship – Day 2 Chip Leaders
- Josh Reichard – 3,100,000
- Michael Rocco – 2,975,000
- Matthew Higgins – 2,765,000
- Jackob Datashvili – 2,730,000
- Denis Cyr – 2,385,000
- Anthony Spinella – 2,110,000
- Scott Baumstein – 2,050,000
- Cody Ferguson – 1,985,000
- Matthew Waxman – 1,935,000
- Kaleb Harwell – 1,785,000