Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Fails to Meet $5m Guarantee for 3rd Year
Written by
Pete - Monday, August 15, 2016,
Live poker
Leading the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open going in to day 3 is Patrick Eskandar
Although it's certainly a prestigious, highly regarded stop on the live tournament calendar, the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Main Event has struggled over the past few years to attract enough entries to cover their lofty guaranteed prizepools. Once again this year the $5m guarantee came up short, to the tune of $756,000, an overlay which will be covered by the Seminole Indians of Florida who put on the event.
After a successful $10m Guaranteed event in 2013, a tournament which exceeded the guaranteed $10m prizepool by almost $2m, the Seminole's were stung with a huge $2.5m deficit in 2014, leading to them dropping the guarantee to $5m for 2015. Despite the drop in guarantee, it was still some $500k short last year, and now, once again, the Seminole's are going to have to pay the price for the hefty guarantee not being met.
However, despite the guarantee failing to be met, there were still plenty of entrants as 847 players paid the $5,250 entry to take part, and among them plenty of big names including the likes of Erik Seidel, Jason Mercier and his fiancee Natasha Barbour, Cate Hall, Tom Marchese, Shaun Deeb, and two time November Niner, Michael Newman.
Most of those, however, have fallen by the wayside over the course of the first two days and the event is now on Day 3, with 38 players looking to grab a well paid spot at the final table. Big names still very much alive and kicking in the event include Tom Marchese, Joe Serock, David "dpeters17" Peter, Matt Affleck, and Chris Klodnicki.
The current leader is Patrick Eskandar, who's biggest live tourney cash to date was $310k for his 20th place finish in the 2010 WSOP Main Event. The prize for first place is a cool $1,000,000. Previous million dollar winners from this event include Grant Hinkle, and Dan Colman.