Fish Bags Chip Lead Over Final 16 in WPT RRPO Championship in South Florida

Connor Richards Editor & Live Reporter U.S.

Dec 02, 2024 2 min read

WPT RRPO Championship Two Table Redraw
Day 3 Action

The most eventful day so far of the 2024 World Poker Tour (WPT) Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open Championship at Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood wrapped up Monday night with Darryll Fish leading the 16 remaining players as the 2018 Lucky Hearts Poker Open champion looks for a second WPT title.

Fish will have his work cut out for him on Day 4 as he faces a table that includes Landon Tice and Dylan Smith, both of whom ran deep in this same venue earlier this year with final table finishes in the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown.

At the next table over is two-time bracelet winner Alexandre Reard and Matthew Wantman, another player seeking a second WPT title after taking down the 2019 Aria Summer Championship in Las Vegas for $443,475.

Other players among the final 16 include Francis Anderson, Iulian Blebea, Eugene Kotlyarevskiy, Drew O'Connell and Florian Ribouchon.

WPT RRPO Championship Two Table Redraw

Seat	Player	Chip Count	Big Blinds
1	Paul Domb	2,300,000	18
2	Iulian Blebea	7,250,000	58
3	Benjamin Jones	3,750,000	30
4	Dylan Smith	4,725,000	37
5	Landon Tice	3,900,000	31
6	Darryll Fish	8,650,000	68
7	Eusebiu Jalba	3,525,000	28
8	Francis Anderson	4,000,000	32

1	Drew O'Connell	4,500,000	36
2	Roman Korenev	750,000	6
3	Matthew Wantman	2,025,000	16
4	Alexandre Reard	2,900,000	23
5	Matthew Beinner	8,000,000	64
6	Florian Ribouchon	4,600,000	36
7	Eugene Kotlyarevskiy	6,900,000	55
8	Artem Metalidi	3,975,000	24

Day 3 Action

Day 3 of the championship event began with 90 players and the field quickly dropped with all players already in the money.

Some of the early eliminations, as documented by the WPT live reporting team, included six-time bracelet winner Jason Mercier (61st - $13,800) 2022 GPI Player of the Year Stephen Song (45th - $19,400) and Jesse Lonis (29th - $27,500), the current GPI frontrunner.

There were a few notable casualties once the event reached three tables. The "professional short stack" Ren Lin finished in 22nd for $32,500 before the elimination of MSPT Hall of Famer Rich Alsup in 19th place for Richard Alsup $39,000. After that, young pros Andrew Voor and Adam Hendrix were respectively eliminated in 18th and 17th place to take home the same amount to mark the end of the day.

Hendrix finished third in the WPT Choctaw Championship earlier this year for $175,000 and has had several recent deep runs in Seminole main events.

Across the room, poker coach and former WPT POY Faraz Jaka took down the $10,000 Deep Stack event for $313,495 after a grueling three-hour heads-up battle. PokerNews happened to be around for the victory and grabbed Jaka for an impromptu winner's interview, which can be read about here.

Day 4 will kick off on Dec. 3 at noon local time as the 16 players return to Level 28 with blinds of 75,000/125,000/125,000. There will still be another day of action before the $662,200 top prize is claimed and the next WPT champion is named.

Stay tuned as PokerNews will be back on-site tomorrow to continue bringing stories from the WPT RRPO festival in South Florida.

_{*Photos courtesy WPT}

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Connor Richards Editor & Live Reporter U.S.

Connor Richards is an Editor & Live Reporter for PokerNews and host of the Life Outside Poker podcast. Connor has been nominated for two Global Poker Awards for his writing.

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