$560 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Blinds 300/600 Ante 50

Ronnie Bardah is no stranger to the South Florida poker scene, or for that matter success on the felt. A little known fact to most – Bardah has cashed in four consecutive World Series of Poker Main Event’s including a 24th place finish in 2010 that was good for 317K. “The fields are soft and the structure is great and I’ve been lucky to get some great table draws,” Bardah said when asked to explain his success. Ronnie also recently added a WSOP bracelet to his resume winning a $2,500 Limit Hold ‘Em Six Handed tournament. His lifetime tournament earnings are just short of a million dollars.

72 players of the original 100 still remain with Level 7 about to come to a close. Here’s a look at some others taking part in tonight’s action:

Abbey Daniels – a local favorite, Abbey is best known for her 4th place finish at the 2011 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown. That finish was good for an impressive $286,819. Abbey is no one hit wonder though as she has numerous final tables and wins on her poker resume since that score.

Orey Hen – another regular in the South Florida tournament poker scene, Orey has just over half a million in live tournament winnings with 10 five figure cashes. His biggest cash was a 7th place finish for over 100K at the 2009 Borgata Winter Poker Open.

Joshua Hillock – Joshua has 11 WSOP cashes to his name and $371,648 in reported career tournament winnings. His best cash was a 2nd place finish at a Pompano Beach tournament that was good for almost 100K.

Qasem Jamhour – 2013 was a good year for Qasem at the felt as he won a Venetian Deep Stack event in Las Vegas for $151,495. This is in addition to a 2nd place finish he had at a 2012 Seminole Hard Rock Coconut Creek tournament that saw him take home an additional $47,089.

Adam Levy – another local boy gone good. Levy, a well known online poker professional who now mainly plays live has over two million in reported live tournament winnings with his biggest cash coming in the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event when he finished in 12th place for $635,011.

Timothy Miles – Timothy is another player who has had some success at the felt. In 2007, he was one of the hotter players on the circuit as he won three events in less than 6 months for over 200K. His best result is a 2nd place finish at a 2008 WSOP Circuit event that was good for $210,610.

Scott Zakheim – another player with over half a million in reported live tournament winnings, Scott won an event in 2011 in West Palm Beach that allowed him to take home $84,712.

$560 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Blinds 150/300 Ante 25

Registration has closed for this 3rd flight of the $300,000 Guaranteed No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament and we ended up with an even 100 registered entrants bringing the total for the event thus far to 312. That means we’re a little more than half way to meeting the guarantee for the event.

Flight:Entries-Players Remaining

A: 109 / 18
B: 103 / 24
C: 100/TBD
D: 11 am Friday
E: 7 pm Friday

Day 2: 1 pm Saturday

$560 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Day 2 Blinds 1,500/3,000/200 ante
42 players remaining, 126k avg (42 bb)

Position-Name-Chip Count

1 MICHAEL LAAKE 292,600 (98 bb)
2 JONATHAN WOLFF 278,700
3 JON BRODY 268,100
4 ENRIQUE ROMAN 255,600
5 JAIME RUBINSTERN 250,800
6 ROBERT MILLER 218,600
7 MATTHEW ELSARELLI 208,900
8 BRUCE REID 203,100
9 JOHN UTLEY 186,900
10 CYNTHIA RADNOVICH 174,100
11 JOHN KLEIN 165,300
12 AHGELO MIELEJL 158,300
13 PIERROT MASSENAT 155,000
14 SHIRAAZ ALI 153,300
15 JOHN MILLER 151,400
16 BRIAN WILSON 148,000
17 PATRICK HENEGHAN 134,600
18 COURTLAND TUYMAN 134,500
19 DIMITRY AGRACHOV 131,500
20 GREGG JAFFY 131,200
21 LUKE BRERETON 131,000
AVERAGE STACK 126,200 (42 bb)
22 MATTHEW VETSEIN 119,100
23 JORGE GOMEZ 113,000
24 DAVID WOLFF 91,500
25 PAULA ALIBRANDI 83,200
26 ADAM CHIPIUK 79,300
27 NANCY THOMAS 78,100
28 BRIAN APPELL 77,500
29 RANDALL COHEN 67,900
30 CHRISTOPHER ASARO 67,400
31 MARINA KOLES 66,900
32 MIGUEL CHAJTUR 63,000
33 DARRYLL FISH 61,100
34 SALVATORE LAROSA 60,100
35 JUAN PERALTA 60,000
36 TODD ARNOLD 54,000
37 DANIEL MOTHA 47,200
38 SHELDON GROSS 47,000
39 MICHAEL HOEBORN 40,000
40 MARSHA WOLAK 38,800
41 STEVE RAEMAN 32,500
42 TERRY MOORE 21,000 (7 bb)

$560 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Level 14 Complete: Day 2 Blinds 1,500/3,000/300 ante
24 players remaining, 107k avg (37 bb)

After an action packed final two levels, 24 players survived Flight B and advanced to Saturday’s Day 2 of the kickoff event of the Lucky Hearts Poker Open.

“It was the most bizarre hour of poker I’ve ever seen,” said WSOP bracelet holder Brian Wilson (Cape Coral), who single-handedly took out chip leader Nigel Murray (Miami Gardens) in the span of three big hands.

Wilson bagged 148k for a top ten stack (7th), but was well behind end of flight chip leader Jon Brody (Davie), who finished with 268k (89 bb). “It’s Day 1, it means nothing,” said Brody, who knows there’s a lot of poker left in this $300,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool that features a total of five flights.

After the final break of the day, Murray was up to 155k, but sent a 68k double-up to Wilson when Wilson’s K-2 flopped two pairs and rivered a full house against Murray’s A-9.

“It’s poker,” said Murray, who walked away dejected after seeing his A-Q lose to Wilson’s Q-3 for another 44k before finally being knocked out.

The flights second biggest stack belongs to Enrique Roman (Davenport) with 266k, followed by Cynthia Radnovich (Pompono Beach) who is third with 174k.

“This room is awesome,” said Wilson, who’s playing in the Stax Poker Lounge for the first time. “The staff is great and the service is out of this world.”

Wilson, who won his bracelet in a 2005 PLO event, added, “when there’s good value I’ll travel anywhere. That’s why I wanted to check this room out.”

Marsha Wolak (Fort Lauderdale), another WSOP bracelet winner (2011 Ladies Event), bagged a short stack of 39k (13 bb) and is currently 40th out of 42 players who have advanced to Day 2.

The two big stacks from Flight A, Michael Laake (293k) and Jonathan Wolff (279k) are still the overall chip leaders, while Brody is third overall.

The remaining players will wait for the final three flights (7 pm Thurs, 11 am & 7 pm Fri) to see where they stack up heading into Day 2.

 $560 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Blinds 100/200

Play has just moved into the 4th level meaning there is approximately 40 minutes left until registration closes. There are currently 88 registered entrants for this flight. Among those in the field are Ronnie Bardah and Abbey Daniels – the two are seated across from one another at the same table. Bardah has a piece of tissue stuck to his face right beneath his nose. “I cut myself shaving,” he explained. “It won’t stop bleeding.” Daniels, not knowing Bardah, tweeted about it:

Some guy at my table has a bloody tissue stuffed up his nose. Anything in the rules about that?

— Abbey Daniels (@abbeydaniels1) January 31, 2014

TDA rules apparently do not have any bloody nose penalties so Bardah is safe for now.

 $560 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

$560 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Play has started in the 3rd flight of Event 1 and there are 51 registered entrants taking part thus far. That number will surely rise as people come in late or re-enter after getting unlucky. We’ll have some photos and names coming soon.

$560 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Blinds 1,200/2,400/300 ante
30 players remaining,  86k avg (36 bb)

We caught this hand before the last break when a player named Brian or Bryan, who says “you’ll have to guess,” is the victim of a brutal run out, while Randy Cohen (Naples), just missed taking down a 150k side pot

It’s a four way all-in and Brian (we’re guessing) has the lead:

Brian: AA
Randy Cohen: QQ
Shelly Gross (Pembroke Pines) 99
John Smith (Park City, UT): 77

Flop: A K J (Brian, set)
Turn: Q (Cohen, set)
River: T

The straight on the board means it’s a 4-way chop.

“I dodged a big one there,” says Gross, who, along with Cohen started the hand with ~90k.

“It is what it is,” says Cohen, who was poised for a huge side pot until the river.

Brian, who had 19k, moves all in two hands later with AJ, but doesn’t improve against Gross’ AK for the knockout.  John Smith, whose 15k was the short stack, like Gross, gets new life.

$560 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)

Blinds 1k/2k/200 ante
35 players remaining, 74k avg (37 bb)

Nigel Murray (Miami Gardens) has a hard time explaining the hand, but the bottom line is that his 7-2 is best for a 100k+ pot which helped him into the chip lead.

“We both missed our flush,” says Murray who is now up to 155k, after making the call on a board of Q-9-2-K-6 for a winning pair of 2s.

Another big stack belongs to Dimitry Agrachov (Weston) who peaked at 145k, but is now down to 125k.