Bill Johnson, a recreational player from Jackson, Ohio, won Event 3 of the ongoing Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open to collect $7,616 in prize money and the tournament trophy. The popular poker festival’s latest champion bested the field of the single-day $300 Deep Stack Turbo No-Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry).
Johnson has retired from his career as a government contractor several years ago in order to devote his time to playing poker recreationally. He learned the game back in 2004. The player said that he missed online poker and mainly playing in online tournaments. He further dwelt that he had never played cash games out of fear the he would like it too much.
Johnson has apparently focused his attention on playing live tournaments after Black Friday. Although he plays three or four of them per year, he has accumulated almost $400,000 in live tournament winnings.
The single-day $300 Deep Stack Turbo No-Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry) kicked off at noon on Sunday. By the time registration closed, there were only four remaining tables. Action quickly developed and the final table of nine was set only a few hours later. Nine-handed play kicked off with Thomas McFarland holding a considerable chip advantage over his opponents.
The player extended his lead even further but given the tournament’s format, even the tiniest mistake could send a chip leader to the rail. McFarland made such a mistake at the time when there were only four hopefuls at the poker table. He was eliminated in fourth place and handed the greater part of his chips to Jorge Gomez.
The three remaining hopefuls played for a while but eventually decided to split evenly what has left of the prize pool. The chip leader at that point was to collect the shiny glass trophy and to be declared a champion. Thus Jeff Sanders, Jorge Gomez, and Bill Johnson each took home $7,616 and Johnson was announced as Event 3’s winner.
Thomas McFarland collected $3,264 for his fourth-place finish. Zoltan Czinkota finished 5th for $2,448. Steven Pollack took 6th place, good for $2,040. Daniel Romano scooped $1,632 for his 7th place in the tournament. Ricardo Marte Robles finished 8th for $1,224. Rounding out the official final table, Johnie Duhig received $918 of the prize pool.
Event 3 attracted a field of 160 entries who generated a prize pool of $40,800. The top 18th laid their hands on a share of the prize pool, with payouts starting from $612.
