Post by Ryan Knuppel on -

This weekend the 2018 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open (which is also known just as SHRPO) began, and the first event concluded on Monday. The name of this event is Event #1: $570 Deep Stack NLH and it turned out to be very popular. There were a total of 3,064 runners, and all of them created a prize pool of $1,532,000. There was some heavy action happening during the whole tournament, and after a lot of struggle and great poker, Matt Edge won it and managed to get the prize of $169,150. However, he was not the only one who won the six-figure score in this event.

In fact, the second place belongs to John Miller who earned $191,788, and the third place belongs to Jay Romano who won $158,813. Commenting on the tournament, Edge stated that the beginning had been rough for him due to the fact that he had been down to 10k very early. However, he added that he had been playing very steadily and made slow but secure progress. Finally, he ended up with a top ten stack when the day finished.

Big Win for Edge

This was a great win for Matt Edge and the highest sum he has ever won. Just for comparison, he managed to win a total of $76,472 so far during his poker career. The sum he won in 2018 SHRPO is more than double that sum. Edge’s best win was when he finished on 15th place in the 2015 World Series of Poker Circuit Harrah’s Cherokee $1,675 Main Event. The sum that he won that day was $18,150. Some of the other players that are poker stars and managed to get to the top 300 in this tournament (the first 300 players are paid) are Daniel Fuhs (13th place – $9,958), Chad Eveslage (23rd place – $6,385), Tony Utnage (100th place – $2,298), and Will “The Thrill” Failla (121st place – $1,838).

The first hand during the final table immediately set Ido Ashkenazi to the rail, and not long after him, Domenico Albano also left the table, having to Jeff Trudeau who had a king-ten on Albano’s queen-ten.
Don Vu lost a race to Jay Romano who had pocket eights that fall in seventh and the next to go after him was Nguyen who was in the 6th place. Noah Muallem was sent home after losing to Edge with an ace-nine to Edge’s ace-queen. Edge continued winning, bringing the same destiny to Andre Rakusa.

When the final three players remaining, they made a deal to distribute the money just based on their stack sizes, and this made Edge the champion since he had the biggest stack up until that point. The next event SHRPO will take place next week – on August 10-14, and it will be called $3 million GTD Championship Event.