The World Poker Tour (WPT) Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Championship event is down to just 16 players as the tournament heads into its penultimate day on Tuesday. Sridhar Sangannagari is the chip leader after Day 3, holding a stack of 18.125 million chips. Only two other players – James Anderson (16.925 million) and Rafael Farah Jarufe (10.900 million) – have more than 10 million.
Everybody remaining is guaranteed at least $56,800, but of course, the pay jumps get sizeable at this point. Six-figure payouts begin with 10th place and the top prize is $1,128,250, which includes a seat in the WPT World Championship.
Going into Day 3, Sangannagari was in solid shape with 1.370 million chips, one of many players in that range. He gradually chipped up throughout the first part of the day, reaching more than 3 million chips by the first break. Not long after the break, he eliminated Matthew Wantman to climb up to 6 million, placing himself among the chip leaders.
About an hour after the next break, Sangannagari kept his steady climb going, growing his stack to 9 million chips. At the dinner break, he was the chip leader with 30 players left, holding 14.575 million. At that point, nobody even had half of what he had.
Sangannagari did fall out of the chip lead for a short time as other players made their runs, but he never had any devastating moments, allowing him to keep collecting chips as the day came to a close.
Sangannagari has as long list of cashes, according to his resume at TheHendonMob.com, but most are only in the three-and-four-figure range (“only” as if it wouldn’t make my week to win $1,000). Many are also from online tournaments that cropped up because of the pandemic. All told, his tournament earnings total $175,358. His largest cash is $54,705 for an 11th place finish in the $500 Housewarming event at last year’s World Series of Poker.
Day 4 of the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown Champion begins at noon ET in Hollywood, Florida. There are about 76 minutes remaining in Level 29, with 75,000/150,000 blinds and a 150,000-chip big blind ante. Levels will be 90 minutes and players will get a break after each one.
Play will go on until the final table of six players is determined. The tournament will not conclude tomorrow, though, as the finale table will be played at the Hyper X ESports Arena at the Luxor in Las Vegas on May 25.
2023 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown – Day 3 Standings
- Sridhar Sangannagari – 18,125,000
- James Anderson – 16,925,000
- Rafael Farah Jarufe – 10,900,000
- Bin Weng – 10,575,000
- Isaac Kempton – 9,200,000
- Andrew Moreno – 7,125,000
- Naing Thu – 6,350,000
- Mitch Garshofsky – 5,575,000
- Gal Yifrach – 5,550,000
- Andrew Ostapchenko – 4,625,000
- Dorian Rios – 3,950,000
- Dylan Smith – 2,925,000
- David Mzareulov – 2,725,000
- Champie Douglas – 2,050,000
- Jeff Madsen – 1,675,000
- Clemen Deng – 620,000
