On Monday, the 2013 World Poker Tour Seminole Hard Rock Showdown saw the final 21 players of a 542-player field return to battle down to the final table. After six levels of play, just a half dozen remained including Kevin “1sickdisease” Eyster, who finished as the chip leader for the second day in a row and is best positioned to capture the $660,395 fist-place prize.
WPT Hard Rock Seminole Showdown Final Table
| Seat | Player | Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Daniel Letts | 1,665,000 (41 BBs) |
| 2 | Paul Dlugozima | 4,470,000 (111 BBs) |
| 3 | Kevin Eyster | 5,680,000 (142 BBs) |
| 4 | Jeff Madsen | 1,385,000 (34 BBs) |
| 5 | Ben Tarzia | 2,380,000 (59 BBs) |
| 6 | Zo Karim | 685,000 (17 BBs) |
Action recommenced in Level 21 (6,000/12,000/2,000), which was where the first elimination of the day occurred. According to the WPT Live Updates Team, it happened when Joey Couden opened for 75,000 from early position only to have Zo Karim three-bet to 200,000 from middle position. Couden called off with the 
and was behind the 
of Karim. The 
flop gave both a pair of aces, but Karim’s kicker kept him in the lead. Neither the 
turn nor 
river would help Couden, and he exited in 21st place for $16,558.
From there, the eliminations continued to mount with Matt Giannetti (20th – $16,558), Danny Suied (19th – $16,558), Micah Smith (18th – $19,106), Anthony Lombard (17th – $19,106), Matthew Mendez (16th – $19,106) and Nancy Birnbaum (15th – $22,927).
Birnbaum, who began the day fifth in chips and was the last woman remaining in the tournament, was eliminated in Level 22 (8,000/16,000/2,000) in a big hand against Eyster. With a board reading 
, both players put in 175,000 and watched the 
peel off on the river. Birnbaum fired out 300,000, Eyster min-raised to 600,000, and Birnbaum moved all in. Eyster snap-called and rolled over the 
for the rivered nuts, which cracked Birnbaum’s 
flopped middle set. With that, Eyster eliminated the last woman in the field while chipping up to 3.45 million.
After Doug Lee was sent to the rail in 14th place for $22,927, current WPT Player of the Year leader Matt Salsberg lost a huge pot against Paul Dlugozima when he ran top pair into a flopped set of deuces. Not long after, Salsberg was eliminated in 13th place.
It happened in Level 24 (12,000/24,000/4,000) when Salsberg made it 55,000 to go under the gun and David Tuthill moved all in behind for 499,000. Action folded back to Salsberg and he called off for 480,000 or so with the , which was racing against Tuthill’s 
. Unfortunately for Salsberg, the board ran out a dry 
, and he exited the tournament with a $22,927 payday and 150 POY points, giving him 2,500 points total and a 100-point lead over Paul Volpe (who finished in 27th place in the tournament).
Tony Ruberto (12th – $29,295), Tuthill (11th – $29,295), Ben Hamnett (10th – $29,295) and Faraz Jaka (9th – $38,213) were the next to go, which meant two more players had to go until the TV final table. As it happened, those two eliminations came on the same hand.
On Hand No. 36 of the unofficial final table, which had combined at 10 players, James Joyner moved all in for 490,000 from the cutoff seat, and Mike DeGilio put in a big raise to 1.15 million. Dlugozima then moved all in for 1.4 million from the big blind, and DeGilio called off his few remaining chips.
DeGilio: 
Dlugozima: 
Joyner:
Dlugozima got it in good, but had to dodge a lot of cards. The 
flop kept Dlugozima out in front, and the turn did the same. All Dlugozima needed to do was dodge either an ace, queen or nine on the river to establish the final table of six, which is exactly what he did when the 
river gave him the double elimination. Because he had the smaller stack, Joyner was eliminated in eighth place for $53,495 while DeGilio took home $75,150 for his seventh-place finish.
Meanwhile, Dlugozima went on to finish as the ClubWPT Player of the Day:
Day 4 is set to begin at 4 p.m. EST on Tuesday. Be sure to return to PokerNews for a full recap of the action.
Data, video and photo courtesy of WorldPokerTour.com.
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