World Poker Tour Seminole Hard Rock Showdown Day 1: Dorfman Dwarfs Competition
The World Poker Tour Seminole Hard Rock Showdown kicked off on Wednesday with 406 players taking to action in the $10,000 Championship Event. This was the first WPT held in Florida, and with over 400 players in the field, it proved to be a great success. At the end of the day, 290 players remained to bag and tag their chips. Leading the field was Randy Dorfman, who wrapped up Day 1 with 160,000 in chips after beginning the day with 30,000.
Dorfman earned “RISE Player of the Day” honors after accumulating the most chips in the room. He sat down with the WPT Live Update Team to chat about his day after the first five levels were complete.
“Got lucky in a couple of spots,” said Dorfman. “There were a couple real amateurs at the table, that were, to be honest, pretty bad.” From there Dorfman went on to recap a hand he played that won him about a 60,000-chip pot. He had two kings and saw a Kx10x7x flop come down in a three-bet pot. From there, Dorfman and his opponent got all of the money in. His opponent, who Dorfman says was playing just about every hand, held Kx7x and was drawing razor thin against Dorfman’s top set. The turn and river blanked from there and Dorfman won the pot.
In addition to Dorfman, plenty of Florida’s top players came out for this event including Jason Mercier, Adam Katz, Noah Schwartz, Robert Mizrachi and Harrison Gimbel. From that group, only Katz, Schwartz and Gimbel made it through to Day 2.
Also taking to the felt in Florida was former WPT Champion Dwyte Pilgrim. Unfortunately for Pilgrim, his day came to a close in Level 3. With the blinds at 100/200 and no ante, Pilgrim was all-in preflop for his last 3,000 with pocket nines. Craig Bergeron held pocket kings and had Pilgrim looking for the exit. The board ran out A♠Q♣6♦K♥2♣ and Pilgrim was eliminated.
Another former WPT Champion in the field was Hoyt Corkins, but he too saw his day come to an end before the final bell. Corkins found himself all in with the K♦6♥ against another player’s 5♣5♥. The flop came down J♣10♣10♦, which gave Corkins a few more outs as he could now counterfeit his opponent’s two pair, but the 2♦ on the turn and 9♥ on the river couldn’t do it for him.
Top 10 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Randy Dorfman | 160,000 |
| 2 | Nicholas Grippo | 149,375 |
| 3 | James Carroll | 130,925 |
| 4 | Todd Terry | 124,975 |
| 5 | Seth Davies | 115,225 |
| 6 | Joe Serock | 113,150 |
| 7 | Marsha Wolak | 106,350 |
| 8 | Elio Cubrera | 105,025 |
| 9 | Jorge Chavez | 104,525 |
| 10 | Aaron Schaff | 104,225 |
Florida gaming laws allow for players as young as 18 to get in on the action. This is the only stop on the WPT that allows this inside the U.S. and a little extra incentive was added for 18- to 20-year-olds. According to the WPT Live Update Team, the player in this age bracket who goes the deepest in the event will win an autographed electronic guitar by Aaron Lewis of the band Staind.
Registration will remain open until the start of Day 2, which means a few latecomers could get into the mix to make the field even larger. Day 2 begins on Thursday at 1200 EDT (1600 GMT) so be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for the recap.
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