$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 3: 100/200

Level 3 is just beginning, and the field has grown to 154 entries. And counting. The total field size is now more than 900 over the combined starting flights, with the prizepool easily surpassing the guaranteed $250,000.

Registration and re-entry remain open for the first nine levels.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 14: 2,000/4,000/400 Ante

Faycal Bennouna had a nice stack at the last break and it only moved further north. He packed 515,000 in his bag when they shut down 1E for a big lead over the first five flights. Yves Fequiere looked a little comfy with 347,000 from 1C but there’s a hefty gap between the top two at the moment.

Jorge Guiladte’s 282,000 might have been good for the chip leader bonus in three of the four prior flights, but all he could do in 1E was bag them up and be happy with a likely top ten returning stack.

There were 23 players remaining at the end of Level 14 from the starting 199 entrants. The final flight is underway and they are looking to join the 93 players who have already advanced to the 2pm restart tomorrow.

Faycal Bennouna – 515,000 (103 bb)
Jorge Guiladte – 282,000 (56 bb)
Vernel Johnson – 194,500 (39 bb)
Bruce Snell – 191,500 (38 bb)
Jose Parra – 167,000 (33 bb)
John DePersio – 167,000 (33 bb)
Andy Slater – 156,000 (31 bb)
Tim Shane – 154,000 (31 bb)
Stuart Greenbaum – 139,500 (28 bb)
Patricio Gonzalez – 131,000 (26 bb)
Marty Robbins – 126,000 (25 bb)
Paul Stanechewski – 113,000 (23 bb)
Edward Mandel – 111,000 (22 bb)
Don Weitzenkorn – 103,000 (21 bb)
Albert Efremoff – 93,500 (19 bb)
Michael Eddy – 88,000 (18 bb)
Philip Paul – 87,000 (17 bb)
Iftach Shimonovitch – 81,000 (16 bb)
Mark Miller – 77,500 (16 bb)
Robert Wesley – 67,500 (14 bb)
Philip Consolo – 57,500 (12 bb)
Kai Koppe – 51,000 (10 bb)
Stephen Leahy – 43,000 (9 bb)

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 1: 50/100

The last wave of players has entered the tournament area, and Day 1F is underway. This is the final starting flight for Event 1.

Players begin with 16,000 chips, and re-entry is available for those who run out of them before the end of the evening. The window for registration is open until the start of Level 10, right around midnight local time.

The player who ends the day with the biggest stack will also earn a $2,500 seat to the $1 million guaranteed Championship Event, starting on October 1.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 14: 2,000/4,000/400 Ante

Tournament staff announced three more hands to play in Flight 1E with 23 players remaining. Faycal Bennouna-Zhar continues to be the runaway leader but we’ll see what happens before the end.

Full chips counts after they color off the black chips and take an inventory of the stacks.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 13: 1,500/3,000/400 Ante

Out of nowhere, Faycal Bennouna has jumped to everyone’s attention when he left a 400K stack behind on break. Chips of all three denominations in play were stacked up in a big, nice towers.

We’ll try to track down how he built the stack but right now he’s the overall Event 1 leader. We’ll see if he can hang on.

Former leader Dan Weitzenkorn has been hovering around the 100K mark and a few players have blasted past including John Depersio. He was probably feeling good about his near 200K stack until he caught a glimpse of the Bennouna castle on the other side.

Faycal Bennouna – 407,000 (136 bb)
John Depersio – 197,000 (66 bb)
Vendel Johnson – 185,400 (62 bb)
Ed Mandel – 175,100 (58 bb)
Tim Shane – 161,700 (54 bb)
Robert Wesley – 133,500 (45 bb)
Jose Parra – 113,200 (38 bb)
Michael Eddy – 107,400 (36 bb)
Dan Weitzenkorn – 106,100 (35 bb)

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 12: 1,200/2,400/300 Ante

Players are midway through Level 12 and players are dropping fast. There are four tables left and will run off on the final break after this level.

They’ll return for two more levels and those with chips will bag them up for a return tomorrow.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 10: 800/1,600/200 Ante

We’re still waiting on official numbers/accounting but it looks like Flight 1E drew 199 entrants. That leaves them one short of the magic 200 but a fine Saturday afternoon showing. That means we only need 83 entrants in the final flight to pass the $250,000 guarantee, we’re going to have some big money up top.

We found Marty Robbins in the field today, a Seminole property regular as he hits up the big series around the different properties. His biggest cash came two months ago when he finished second in the huge-field Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open $150 Deep Stack event.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 9: 600/1,200/200 Ante

Players have returned for the last level with open registration or re-entry only two buy-ins short of 200 entrants. A recent re-enter came from Sofia Lövgren when she hit the rail just before the break. Another recent casualty was Jacquelyn Scott but we have no information about her coming back in.

Dan Weitzenkorn made the most of his last four levels and extended his chip lead as the only player over 100,000. Vendel Johnson rode his elimination of TJ Shulman to take his spot on the leaderboard while Iman Dan backed up a little since his highmark.

Dan Weitzenkorn – 114,600 (96 bb)
Vendel Johnson – 82,300 (69 bb)
Joe Patalano – 50,500 (42 bb)
Iman Dan – 34,700 (29 bb)
Sofia Lövgren – 16,000 (13 bb)

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 8: 500/1,000/100 Ante

TJ Shulman took a tough beat as they were getting near the end of Level 8. We caught the action with the chips in the middle and Shulman at risk against Vendel Johnson. He was ahead with versus and stormed further ahead on the flop.

That left Johnson with less than a 3% chance to win the hand but hit a couple nice running cards with the turn and river. Not a fun way to go out but Shulman was looking to get another bullet in the game.

Players are heading off on a 15-minute break and will return for one more level with registration and re-entry open.

$350 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
Level 8: 500/1,000/100 Ante

The 1E field reached Level 8 with 188 entrants so far and trying to hit the 200 mark. It seems unlikely with little over an hour to register, but it will be close.

Joe Patalano is in action today after earning the first trophy of the 2015 Coco Poker Open. While this is the first event of the series, the PLO Event 2 played out yesterday and Pantalano was the last player standing after a heads up chop.