April 18 2013, by Eric Danis

A Final Look at the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown

After a few weeks hosting tournaments in Europe (Barcelona, Venice), the World Poker Tour was back in North America this past week, more specifically, the WPT made its way to Hollywood, Florida for the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown.

Kevin Eyster GPIOnline poker standout Kevin “1SickDisease” Eyster (GPI#1310) is the latest WPT Champions Club member and he may very well be one – if not the – hottest player on the planet at the moment.

Eyster has over 3M in online poker earnings, including over 1M collected on both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker.  Eyster’s biggest online score came back only a few short weeks ago when he won FTOPS Event #34 – the 2K NLH Six-Man event.

Eyster got the best of Ben Tarzia (GPI#1570) heads-up although it wasn’t a fair battle as Eyster started heads-up play with a monster chip stack.

 

Pro Zo Karim (GPI#1460) certainly made things interesting early when he took his bottom stack straight to the top – Karim would eventually bow out in third position … meanwhile, fellow poker pro – and two-time WSOP bracelet winner – Jeff Madsen (GPI#332) had another disappointing end to his WPT final table experience.  Just like the WPT Legends of Poker in August, Madsen was the first player out at the WPT Final Table.

The WPT tour remains in Florida as the WPT bestbet Open is set for Jacksonville April 26th to the 30th.  With only three tour stops left in Season XI, it’s getting down the wire on the World Poker Tour!

WPT SEMINOLE HARD ROCK POKER SHOWDOWN
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel + Casino
Hollywood, Florida, USA
Total Entries: 542
Prize Pool: $2,547,400

[table id=126 /]

[table id=125 /]

 

Mike Watson FPMFANTASY FOCUS
A total of 1,604 FPM Managers earned a minimum of 28 FPM Points at the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown.  Jon N. was the top FPM Manager for the tournament.  Jon’s team, which scored an impressive 618 FPM Points included WPT Season VIII Player of the Year Faraz Jaka and WPT Champions Club members Benjamin Hamnett and Matt Salsberg.

Mike Watson was busy taking care of business Down Under at the inaugural WSOP Asia-Pacific but that didn’t keep him from fielding a top-level FPM team for this WPT event.  Watson lead all pros with a  552-FPM Point performance.

Watson’s club included Hamnett and Salsberg.  It also included the likes of Matt Giannetti, Shaun Deeb and GPI Player of the Month Paul Volpe.

THE PERFECT TEAM
The perfect team would have scored you a total of 791 FPM Points and would have cost a total of 932,330:

6th Jeff Madsen 14,160, 99 FPM Points
9th Faraz Jaka 160,530, 90 FPM Points
10th Benjamin Hamnett 10,000, 88 FPM Points
11th David Tuthill 36,060, 86 FPM Points
13th Matt Salsberg 252,890, 82 FPM Points
18th Micah Smith 10,000, 75 FPM Points
20th Matt Giannetti 34,160, 73 FPM Points
23rd Justin Conley 10,000, 70 FPM Points
27th Paul Volpe 394,080, 66 FPM Points
33rd Filipp Khavin 10,000, 62 FPM Points
*Perfect team based on 10-player team and 1,000,000 cap

ERIC’S TEAM
I had an extremely young team at the SHR Showdown which ended up paying some dividends.  Although only five of my 11 players scored FPM Points, I was still happy with the performance of my team:

Aaron Massey FPMJustin Zaki FPMTEAM DANIS (357 FPM Points)
Benjamin Hamnett: 88 FPM Points
<<< Aaron Massey: 60 FPM Points
David Tuthill: 86 FPM Points
Paul Volpe: 66 FPM Points
Shaun Deeb: 57 FPM Points
Jonathan Roy: Eliminated
A.P. Phahurat: Eliminated
Justin Zaki: Eliminated >>>
Andy Hwang: Eliminated
Danny Shiff: Eliminated
David Diaz: Eliminated

 Head on over to Facebook and signup to play the GPI Fantasy Poker Manager – you still have plenty of time to make your selections for EPT Berlin … FPM is the OFFICIAL Fantasy Poker Game of the World Poker Tour!

WPT FPMWSOP FPM

 

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About the author

Eric Danis’ passion for poker came at a very early age but it’s when writing about and covering the game he loves that Danis is most in his element. Danis is better known for creating www.PTPRpoker.com where he spent a few years covering poker events. Danis is also known for having worked on the poker shows Poker Eh! and The Pulse on the Quad Jacks Network.