The 2019 World Poker Tour (WPT) Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open Main Event (I’ll admit, having to type that out bothers me, for some reason) heads into Day 4 today with Fabian Gumz leading the 17 remaining players. This is Gumz’s first trip to Florida and so far, it’s going swimmingly; Gumz takes 6.620 million chips into Tuesday’s action.
Of course, anything can change in poker, but right now, the race for the Champion’s Cup is not particularly close. Cesar Fuentes is in second place, way behind with 4.075 million chips. And he is the only player above the 4 million chip mark. Only three other players have more than 3 million. It is Gumz’s tournament for the taking at the moment, but again, a single hand can flip things in a hurry.
“It’s pretty amazing,” Gumz told WPT.com of his day afterward. “This is a huge tournament and 90 minutes ago before the last level I was below the average chip stack. I was on a heater the last 90 minutes.”
The hand that got him going came during Level 25 with blinds at 20,000/40,000 and a 40,000 chip ante. Jonathan Jaffe limped from the small blind pre-flop, Gumz raised to 140,000 from the big blind, and Jaffe re-raised to 400,000. Gumz made the call and the flop came down 8-J-J. Jaffe bet 350,000, Gumz called. With another Jack on the turn, Jaffe bet 500,000 and after using a time extension chip, Gumz again made the call. A 5 came on the river and Jaffe led out with a 300,000 chip bet. Gumz then moved all-in for 400,000 and Jaffe called, showing pocket Queens for a full house. Gumz, though, had Q-J and quads to double-up to 3.340 million.
Gumz soon increased his stack to about 4 million and then made another huge jump. With community cards of A-T-7-K and a pot of half a million chips, Jerry Wong made a bet and Gumz raised to 505,000. Wong shoved for 1.785 million chips and Gumz called with pocket Tens. Wong had T-5 of clubs, giving him a flush draw and he would need that flush to beat Gumz’s set. The river did not help Wong and he was eliminated in 20th place, while Gumz took his chip stack up to nearly 6 million.
Every player remaining in the tournament is guaranteed at least a $22,975 payday, but most are gunning for the $545,070 first prize.
Though the action tends to slow the further you get in a major poker tournament, it should be a relatively short day today, as play will stop once the six-handed final table is reached.
2019 World Poker Tour Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open Main Event – Day 3 Chip Leaders
- Fabian Gumz – 6,620,000
- Cesar Fuentes – 4,075,000
- Danny Fuhs – 3,715,000
- Milen Stefanov – 3,115,000
- David Novosel – 3,055,000
- Jeffrey Colpitts – 2,570,000
- Jeff Blenkarn – 2,215,000
- Bin Weng – 2,185,000
- Aaron Mermelstein – 1,950,000
- Antonio Mallol – 1,585,000
- Francis Anderson – 1,500,000
- Roman Korenev – 1,425,000
- Arkadiy Tsinis – 1,375,000
- Mitchell Smith – 1,375,000
- Toby Joyce – 1,345,000
- Jonathan Jaffe – 790,000
- Hiroaki Harada – 635,000