It looked like it was going to be a long final table at the 2017 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship (SHRPO) Tuesday as even though Aaron Mermelstein had a comfortable chip lead, almost everyone at the table had a fairly deep stack. And with nine players beginning the last day of play, there was a chance it could go on for a while.
And for a while it did. Only one player was knocked out in each of the first four hour and a half-long levels; by the time Martin Kozlov collected all the chips to win three-quarters of a million dollars, the final table had spanned 13 hours.
The SHRPO was also organized in quite a unique way, adding more emphasis to how slow the pace of the Championship final table really was. The tournament festival had what it called the “Big 4” events: the $1,100 No-Limit Hold’em Re-entry event, the $5,250 Championship Event, the $2,650 Freeze Out, and the $25,500 High Roller Re-entry event. Though the other three events began before the Championship, they were all scheduled in such a way so as to have all of their final tables play out in the same room on Tuesday.
Joe Keuther, the short stack at the Championship final table and the first one to be eliminated, was actually at two final tables at the same time, so while he was likely disappointed to finish ninth, he was able to just saunter over to the $1,100 No-Limit Hold’em final table and keep going (he finished eighth there).
Kozlov commented on the four final table arrangement and the pace of his table in his post-game interview with SHRPO officials, saying:
They had The Big 4, and after two or three hours all the tables of the other three were down to four or five players, and it took us six hours to lose two players. It was super slow, and you just had to play it one hand at a time. The structure was so good you could afford to take some beats, you could afford to lose some pots. Patience was the most important thing I guess.
He needed that patience, too, as he found himself very short stacked with five players remaining, holding barely more than 10 big blinds.
“The thing that affects my mental state the most is if I’m getting downward momentum, if I’m getting upward momentum it just kind of clears my mind to focus on the strategy,” Kozlov said afterward. “So when things are going right I’m thinking more clearly about what to do strategy-wise, if things are going bad I’m just steaming.”
“Five handed I didn’t have many chips at all, and I was a bit tilted on break. I was talking to my wife, and I was like, ‘What am I going to do now. There’s not much left, I’m going to have to win a couple of all ins.’ And then I came back and won every all in, and now I’ve won the tournament.”
What was that about a chip and chair again?
Kozlov entered heads-up play against Dylan Drazen with a 6 million chip lead, 16.325 million to 10.325 million. He never fell behind during the one-on-one match, though Drazen did pull within less than 1.5 million. Interestingly, it was when Drazen was at his closest that the whole thing ended.
Kozlov raised to 600,000 pre-flop and Drazen called. On the flop of K-Q-8, Drazen checked and then called Kozlov’s 400,000 chip bet. It was the same action on the turn when a 4 was dealt, this time for 2.6 million chips. And then again, when a 2 landed on the river, Drazen called, Kozlov moved all-in, and then Drazen called all-in. Kozlov revealed pocket Kings for flopped top set, while Drazen had just J-8 for third pair, almost a bluff call.
The win put Kozlov well over $2 million in career live earnings, increasing his total to $2,680,977.
2017 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship – Final Table Results
1. Martin Kozlov – $754,083
2. Dylan Drazen – $528,322
3. Matt Berkey – $341,618
4. Yi Chi Li – $252,481
5. Michael Aron – $191,437
6. Aaron Mermelstein – $152,547
7. Adam Levy – $126,305
8. Luke Brererton – $100,408
9. Joe Kuether – $75,413
