It was final table or bust Monday at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Seminole Hard Rock Showdown as the last 21 players in the field looked to make Tuesday’s six-handed final table. It took about nine and a half hours to find 15 eliminations, but the final table was finally set with Louisiana’s Kevin Eyster holding the chip lead with 5.68 million chips.
Eyster has never won a major live tournament, but he has had some nice cashes on the live tournament circuit. Just last month, he finished second in the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit Black Hawk Main Event for $85,852, the biggest cash of his career. He had a couple that came close to that back in 2010: $79,876 for a 16th place finish in the European Poker Tour (EPT) Grand Final and $72,576 for an eighth place finish in the WSOP Europe High Roller Heads-Up event. All told, Eyster has won just over half a million dollars in live tournaments.
With 542 entrants paying $5,000 to play, the total prize pool for the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown is $2,547,400. First place will pay out $660,395 and payouts went down to the top 54 players. Everyone playing today will make at least $100,000.
Eyster began Monday as the chip leader with about 1.9 million chips, but had a rocky beginning to the day, doubling up a couple players and falling back a bit. About a third of the way through, though, he regained his mojo, knocking out Nancy Birnbaum in 15th place to raise his stack to 3.45 million. It was a tough beat for Birnbaum, who held pocket Queens and flopped a set, only to see Eyster river a straight with 8-5 suited.
His stack stayed stagnant for hours after that before shrinking a bit, but finally, when the field was down to ten players, he began his climb once again. The highlight hand came less than an hour before the end of the night. Eyster raised pre-flop to 65,000, Faraz Jaka re-raised to 350,000, and Eyster shoved all-in. Jaka made a quick call with pocket Kings only to see Eyster turn over pocket Aces. The hand went just like one would expect and Jaka was knocked out of the tournament in ninth place. Eyster vaulted way ahead of the pack with that pot, which took him up to over 5 million chips.
The final table of the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown will begin at 4:00pm and will continue until a new champion is crowned.
2013 World Poker Tour Seminole Hard Rock Showdown – Final Table Chip Counts
1. Kevin Eyster – 5,680,000
2. Paul Dlugozima – 4,470,000
3. Ben Tarzia – 2,380,000
4. Daniel Letts – 1,665,000
5. Jeff Madsen – 1,385,000
6. Zo Karim – 685,000
