On Saturday, Day 1b of the World Poker Tour (WPT) $3,500 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown drew 1,155 entries, which along with Day 1a’s 1,135 brought the total field up to 2,290 entrants (beating 2022’s field of 2,010 runners). It also became the second-largest WPT event at the $3,500 buy-in level, second only to the same event back in 2021 (2,482 entries).

For their part, the Seminole Hard Rock hosted 17 satellites for the tournament, which ended up sending 192 players into the WPT Main Event.

The $3 million guarantee was obliterated as a $7,328,000 prize pool was created. That will be distributed to the top 287 finishers with the eventual winner taking home a $1,128,250 top prize.

Final Table Payouts

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Seth Bags Big Stacks

After 10 levels of play, 387 players remained with Akash Seth and his stack of 730,500 leading the way, which was well ahead of Day 1a chip leader Anthony Spinella’s 473,000.

Seth got a nice boost in the last level of the night. With the blinds at 1,000/2,000/2,000, a preflop raising way saw two players all in for 80,000 and 160,000 respectively. One held ace-king, the other ace-jack, and both were at risk against Seth’s pocket kings. The board ran out clean and Seth vaulted over the 700K mark.

Others to punch their ticket to Day 2 were Nick Palma (456,000), AJ Kelsall (361,000), Conrad Simpson (346,500), Landon Tice (261,000), Nick Schulman (125,000), Cherish Andrews (83,000), Kathy Liebert (43,500), and Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi (36,000).

Likewise, Natasha Mercier advanced with 244,000. In Level 8 (600/1,200/1,200), Mercier raised to 2,500 under the gun and then called after a middle-position player three-bet to 7,500. When the flop fell J♥6♦4♦, Mercier check-called a bet of 12,000 and then checked again on the 7♠ turn.

Her opponent jammed for roughly 70,000 and Mercier tanked for a bit before calling with the 10♦10♣. It was best as her opponent was drawing with the 9♦8♠. The 6♥ river was safe for Mercier and she took down a nice pot.

Day 2 will begin on Sunday, April 30th at 12 p.m. EST and Day 3 will take place on Monday, May 1st at 12 p.m. EST with a plan to play down to 16 players. Day 4 is scheduled for Tuesday, May 2nd at 12 p.m. EST and will reach the final table, which will then be played at the Hyper X ESports Arena at the Luxor in Las Vegas, Nevada on May 25th.

_{*Images courtesy of WPT and Seminole Hard Rock.}