2013 World Poker Tour Seminole Hard Rock Showdown Day 3: Eyster Leads Final 21
The 2013 World Poker Tour Seminole Hard Rock Showdown continued on Sunday with Day 4 action at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood, Florida. The remaining 87 players of a 542-player field returned for five more levels of action, and by the time they bagged and tagged, only 21 remained with Kevin “1sickdisease” Eyster and his stack of 1.904 million in chips leading the way.
Top 10 Day 3 Counts
| Place | Player | Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kevin Eyster | 1,904,000 |
| 2 | Tony Ruberto | 1,500,000 |
| 3 | Faraz Jaka | 1,470,000 |
| 4 | James Joyner | 1,378,000 |
| 5 | Nancy Birnbaum | 1,033,000 |
| 6 | David Tuthill | 1,013,000 |
| 7 | Zo Karim | 932,000 |
| 8 | Jeff Madsen | 805,000 |
| 9 | Mike Degillio | 780,000 |
| 10 | Matt Salsberg | 746,000 |
The day’s action began in Level 16 (2,000/4,000/500), and everyone was looking to make the money in the top 54, though everyone had their eyes firmly fixed on the $660,395 first-place prize. After having finished as the chip leader two days running, Shaun Deeb was primed to make a run at it, that is until he started to hemorrhage chips.
Others whose chips bled out in the early eliminations of the day were Jason Mercier, Allen Kessler, Garrett Greer, Anthony Gregg, Jonathan Little, Justin Zaki, John Dibella and Byron Kaverman, to name a few.
With 55 players remaining in Level 17 (2,500/5,000/500), the money bubble was in full effect. According to the WPT Live Updates Team, the bubble burst in a hand with 55,000 already in the pot and a board reading A♥10♠2♣J♦. Ben Tarzia checked from the small blind, Corey Burbick bet 27,000 from under the gun, and Christian Harder moved all in for 78,000. Tarzia got out of the way, Burbick called with the K♦Q♠, which was ahead of Harder’s 10♣10♠. The K♣ failed to pair the board on the river, and Harder was eliminated as the bubble boy while the remaining players were each guaranteed a $10,190 payday.
From there, a flood of eliminations occurred including those of Andy Philachack (54th - $10,190), Michael Dentale (51st - $10,190), Dan O’Brien (47th - $10,190), Casey Yontz (44th - $11,463), Michael Palma (43rd - $11,463) and Deeb (41st - $11,463).
Deeb was never able to recover from his disastrous start to the day and was eliminated in Level 18 (3,000/6,000/1,000). It happened when he got all-in preflop holding the J♥J♠ only to run it into the Q♥Q♣ of Anthony Lombard. The board ran out A♥8♦6♣9♦8♥, and just like that, Deeb’s run at the Seminole Hard Rock Showdown title came to an end.
Nothing worse than inadvertent needles from clueless people... Cage lady was like you were in 1st how did you get 41st
— shaun deeb (@shaundeeb)
While Deeb was no doubt disappointed, he soon got some company on the rail in Joe Serock (40th - $11,463), Donald Nicholson (39th - $11,463), Aaron Massey (36th - $14,011), Bryan Morton (31st - $14,011), Ebony Kenney (30th - $14,011) and Paul Volpe (27th - $16,558).
Volpe was sent packing in Level 20 (5,000/10,000/1,000) when he got his short stack in holding the A♥6♥ and was looking to overcome the A♣Q♥ of Eyster. The 10♣3♥2♥ flop gave him a good chance of doing so by bringing two hearts, but Volpe missed his plethora of outs when the 5♠ blanked on the turn followed by the 10♦ on the river.
Volpe began the day with 2,350 WPT Season XI Player of the Year Points, which had him tied atop the leaderboard with Matt Salsberg, who survived Day 3. Volpe earned 50 points for his performance, which means Salsberg can pass Volpe with an 18th-place finish or higher. Even so, expect the race to continue as three more WPT events remain on the Season XI schedule.
In addition to Salsberg, Ben Hamnett (655,000), Doug Lee (610,000), Joey Couden (573,000), Matt Giannetti (369,000), Danny Suied (235,000) and Micah Smith (62,000) all survived the day.
Day 4 is set to begin at noon EST on Sunday. Be sure to return to PokerNews for a full recap of the action.
Data, video and photo courtesy of WorldPokerTour.com.
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