$2,500 Championship Event Day 1 | Hollywood Poker Open Season 3 Championship Event

06-27-2015 02:06 UTC-7

Pedro Oliveira Leads Hollywood Poker Open Championship After Day 1

Happy_Freaked

Level 11 : 600/1,200, 100 ante

The third season of the Hollywood Poker Open held its $2,500 Championship Event at the M Resort Casino Spa in Las Vegas, and after Day 1 Pedro Oliveira (369,000) led the way. The first and only starting day of this event drew a big 662 entries, 188 of which managed to make it through to Day 2. Late registration for the event will remain open until the start of Day 2, and we're expecting to see some more familiar faces give it another shot.

The field on Day 1 was spectacular, as tons of notables showed up to battle in the beautiful Milan Ballroom. Besides defending champion Simon Deadman, who reentered twice, we spotted Jonathan Little, Jared Hamby, Matthias De Meulder, Justin Young, Eddy Sabat, Matt Salsburg, and Allen Kessler, just to name a few. Unfortunately, none of them made the second day of play, but they can still reenter before the cards are in the air on Saturday at noon local time.

HPO ambassador Chris Moneymaker entertained his table with some friendly bets on the Women's World Cup, but the poker hands didn't go his way. Moneymaker fired a couple bullets, but to no avail.

The Dutch were also represented with Steven van Zadelhoff and Pim de Goede, neither of which made Day 2.

Esther Taylor-Brady did make the next day, and she bagged up a big stack worth 217,000 in chips. Tim Reilly is also among the bigger stacks with 151,300, and so is Cord Garcia wirth 151,000 and Ukranian pro Oleksandr Gnatenko with 141,700.

British European Poker Tour champions David Vamplew and Tom Middleton also played, but the latter was the only one to bag up an advancing stack, as he will take 134,000 into Day 2. Recent World Series of Poker bracelet winner and last year's runner-up, Michael Wang, entered as well, but he was unable to survive.

Tracey Sweeney was one of the more active players in the tournament on Day 1, and she will return on Day 2 with 79,300.

Towards the end of the night reentries were plentiful, and Tom Hall, DJ MacKinnon, Artur Koren, and Jake Balsiger were among the ones knocked out.

Play resumes on Saturday at 12 p.m. local Las Vegas time, and PokerNews.com will be right there with you with all the live updates. We'll see you then!

06-27-2015 01:21 UTC-7

PokerNews Podcast Episode #309: Pizza is Coming feat. Mickey Doft

donpeters

Level 11 : 600/1,200, 100 ante

Jason Somerville is in the dirty basement for this episode, but he is replaced by the legendary Mickey Doft, who STILL DOESN'T HAVE PIZZA. The gang, broadcasting from the Hollywood Poker Open $2,500 Championship Event at the M Resort Spa Casino, discusses a bad day in the 25K Fantasy League, the recent bracelet winners, and the ABSENCE OF PIZZA.

You can subscribe to the entire iBus Media Network on iTunes here, or you can access the RSS feed here. The PokerNews family of podcasts is now available on Stitcher.

Tags: Jason Somerville Mickey Doft PokerNews Podcast

06-26-2015 18:32 UTC-7

Jedlicka Busts Moneymaker

donpeters

Level 6 : 200/400, 50 ante

When we arrived at the table with Chris Moneymaker, Stefan Jedlicka was in the tank. It looked like Jedlicka had opened to 1,000 and then Moneymaker moved in for 6,375. Kruger had made the call, and then Jedlicka was thinking. Eventually, Jedlicka reraised all in to put the pressure back on Kruger. He tanked, then folded, leaving Moneymaker to do battle with Jedlicka.

"Please tell me you have ace-king," said a hopeful Moneymaker.

Jedlicka did indeed show ace-king with the .

"Yes! Well that's at least good," commented Moneymaker as he turned up the .

The flop, turn, and river ran out , and Moneymaker was off to the rail.

"I'll see you guys later," said the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event champion. "At least I get an early dinner."

Player	Chips	Progress
Stefan Jedlicka	56,000
Justin Kruger	27,000	1,000
Chris Moneymaker	Busted

Tags: Justin Kruger Chris Moneymaker Stefan Jedlicka

06-26-2015 10:01 UTC-7

Get Ready for the Hollywood Poker Open Championship Event!

donpeters

Welcome to the final event of Season 3 of the Hollywood Poker Open — the $500,000 guaranteed $2,500 Championship Event. The PokerNews Live Reporting team will be on hand for the next three days from the M Resort Casino Spa in Las Vegas to cover this spectacular event, but it's highly encouraged that you come down and play if you're in the area.

The past two season-ending events have attracted 631 and 692 entries in 2013 and 2014, respectively, and this year's field is hopeful of pushing past the 700-entry mark. It all kicks off today at 12 p.m. local time with the plan to play 11 one-hour levels. Players will begin with a 20,000-chip starting stack, and registration will remain open until the start of Day 2.

The defending champion is Simon Deadman, who earned the $351,097 top prize last summer. He'll likely be back in the mix this year and hoping to successfully defend the title.

Another player guaranteed to show up is 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker. Moneymaker is highly credited with igniting the poker boom after his fairytale win in 2003, and now he's an ambassador for the HPO. After having already won an HPO title in St. Louis last year, Moneymaker will be looking for number two here in the city that made him famous.

Main Event players will be able to utilize the popular MyStack App to update their hands and chip counts straight into the live blog. To learn more about the app, and to download for free on both iOS and Android devices, click here.

Outside of the $2,500 Championship Event, the HPO will be hosting three other tournaments over the weekend. On Saturday, a $555 Seniors' Championship will start at 1 p.m. and a $235 No-Limit Hold'em event will start at 6 p.m. On Sunday, a $235 No-Limit Hold'em Deepstack event will start at 1 p.m. All times are local.

For those looking to stay involved with the action on social media, be sure to follow our reporters on the floor, Remko Rinkema and Mickey Doft, plus the official PokerNews and Hollywood Poker Open Twitter accounts. To get in on the conversation surrounding the event, use "#HPOS3" when posting.

Tags: Chris Moneymaker Mickey Doft Remko Rinkema Simon Deadman