The 2023 WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open Championship began several days ago and drew 1,447 entries, generating a prize pool of $4,630,400. Emerging victorious was Istvan Briski, winning outright for $647,300.
Briski hails from Hungary and mainly plays poker online. This was his first time playing at the Seminole Hard Rock and he made it a time he’ll never forget.
“It’s amazing,” said Briski of winning. “I ran really good in the tournament, and yeah, I’m very happy. My biggest score so far. I’m very grateful.”
Briski bagged a below-average stack after Day 1 and was 274th of the returning 513 players, but still was comfortable with 45 big blinds. His Day 2 went fantastic, as he finished 8th in chips of the remaining 83 players. From there he bagged the chip lead after Day 3, leading the remaining 15 players.
He began the WPT final table second in chips and started off well, eliminating Fred Goldberg in fourth place.
When heads-up play was reached, Briski was trailing. However, he found a eventually closing it out.
“There were some very good players, but I was running very good in important spots, and that’s really what tournaments are about a lot of the time.”
Photos by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive.com / Courtesy of World Poker Tour
| Place | First Name | Last Name | Prize Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Istvan | Briski | $647,300* |
| 2 | Rayan | Chamas | $600,000* |
| 3 | Sandy | Sanchez | $366,500 |
| 4 | Fred | Goldberg | $274,000 |
| 5 | Matt | Bond | $206,900 |
| 6 | Darryll | Fish | $157,800 |
| 7 | Luke | Graham | $121,500 |
| 8 | Jason | Sagle | $94,500 |
| 9 | Rishi | Makkar | $74,300 |
| 10 | Alejandro | Gonzalez Olaechea | $74,300 |
| 11 | Viktor | Kovachev | $59,000 |
| 12 | Lucian | Silveira | $59,000 |
| 13 | Niko | Koop | $47,300 |
| 14 | Jack | McDonald | $47,300 |
| 15 | Gergely | Kulcsár | $38,300 |
| 16 | Robert | Kennedy | $38,300 |
| 17 | Alessio | Isaia | $31,400 |
| 18 | Dmitrii | Perfilev | $31,400 |
| 19 | Chad | Eveslage | $31,400 |
| 20 | Joe | Reddick | $31,400 |
| 21 | Justin | Zaki | $26,000 |
| 22 | Martin | Stausholm | $26,000 |
| 23 | Sacha | Rymland | $26,000 |
| 24 | Jerry | Maher | $26,000 |
| 25 | Maksim | Pisarenko | $21,800 |
| 26 | Aleks | Dimitrov | $21,800 |
| 27 | Bryce | McVay | $21,800 |
| 28 | Kyle | Julius | $21,800 |
| 29 | Shawn | Nguyen | $21,800 |
| 30 | Ziad | Alameddine | $21,800 |
| 31 | Brandon | Wittmeyer | $21,800 |
| 32 | Blake | Napierala | $21,800 |
| 33 | Stefan | Jedlicka | $18,400 |
| 34 | Nazar | Buhaiov | $18,400 |
| 35 | Guy | Naimi | $18,400 |
| 36 | Aristotles | Neto | $18,400 |
| 37 | David | Nowling | $18,400 |
| 38 | Eric | Zheng | $18,400 |
| 39 | Fred | Paradis | $18,400 |
| 40 | Boris | Kolev | $18,400 |
| 41 | Kharlin | Sued | $15,800 |
| 42 | John | Depersio | $15,800 |
| 43 | Bryan | Rosen | $15,800 |
| 44 | Dulan | Duran | $15,800 |
| 45 | Maheshwar | Manthani | $15,800 |
| 46 | Jerry | Wong | $15,800 |
| 47 | Anthony | Zinno | $15,800 |
| 48 | Cheng | Xu | $15,800 |
| 49 | Alex | Livingston | $13,700 |
| 50 | Nicholas | Verderamo | $13,700 |
| 51 | Alex | Nguyen | $13,700 |
| 52 | Petko | Tsakov | $13,700 |
| 53 | Vladas | Tamasauskas | $13,700 |
| 54 | Elliot | Kampen | $13,700 |
| 55 | Andrew | Moreno | $13,700 |
| 56 | Heng | Zhang | $13,700 |
| 57 | Yuval | Bronshtein | $12,000 |
| 58 | Juan | Membreno Orellana | $12,000 |
| 59 | Alex | Foxen | $12,000 |
| 60 | Kyle | Arora | $12,000 |
| 61 | Diego | Paulo Uez | $12,000 |
| 62 | Nir | Cohen | $12,000 |
| 63 | Gal | Yifrach | $12,000 |
| 64 | Adam | Hendrix | $12,000 |
| 65 | Luciano | Nardi | $10,600 |
| 66 | Sang | Ho | $10,600 |
| 67 | Lyle | Diamond | $10,600 |
| 68 | Brian | Luo | $10,600 |
| 69 | Chance | Kornuth | $10,600 |
| 70 | Joshua | Wang | $10,600 |
| 71 | Sam | Laskowitz | $10,600 |
| 72 | Brian | Altman | $10,600 |
| 73 | Jared | Hemingway | $9,500 |
| 74 | Jarod | Einsohn | $9,500 |
| 75 | Brian | Murphy | $9,500 |
| 76 | Norbert | Szecsi | $9,500 |
| 77 | Michael | Liang | $9,500 |
| 78 | Krasimir | Yankov | $9,500 |
| 79 | David | Uvaydov | $9,500 |
| 80 | Zachary | Bruch | $9,500 |
| 81 | Femi | Fashakin | $8,600 |
| 82 | Armand | Matti | $8,600 |
| 83 | Igor | Hot | $8,600 |
| 84 | Andrew | Ostapchenko | $8,600 |
| 85 | Dominique | Mosley | $8,600 |
| 86 | Dion | Jagroo | $8,600 |
| 87 | Oscar | Blanco | $8,600 |
| 88 | Aaron | Thivyanathan | $8,600 |
| 89 | Arunas | Sapitavicius | $7,800 |
| 90 | Nadeem | Hirani | $7,800 |
| 91 | Senhao | Cao | $7,800 |
| 92 | Rob | Brown | $7,800 |
| 93 | Peter | Fellows | $7,800 |
| 94 | Josh | Rothberg | $7,800 |
| 95 | Barry | McGovern | $7,800 |
| 96 | Sean | Astwood | $7,800 |
| 97 | Jason | Rocha | $7,800 |
| 98 | Nancy | Birnbaum | $7,800 |
| 99 | Alexander | Stewart | $7,800 |
| 100 | Matthew M. | Martin | $7,800 |
| 101 | Nicholas | Richards | $7,800 |
| 102 | Scott | Eskenazi | $7,800 |
| 103 | Frederic | Normand | $7,800 |
| 104 | Jason | Bullock | $7,800 |
| 105 | Nitis | Udornpim | $7,100 |
| 106 | John | Grout | $7,100 |
| 107 | Scott | Weidema | $7,100 |
| 108 | Jake | Ozyman | $7,100 |
| 109 | Julio | Belluscio | $7,100 |
| 110 | Alejandro | Burazco | $7,100 |
| 111 | Sandeep | Mathai | $7,100 |
| 112 | Brandon | Wilson | $7,100 |
| 113 | Mike | Vanier | $7,100 |
| 114 | Peter | Mugar | $7,100 |
| 115 | Michael | Tait | $7,100 |
| 116 | Rafal | Michalowski | $7,100 |
| 117 | Omer | Rotman | $7,100 |
| 118 | Maksim | Lebedev | $7,100 |
| 119 | Michael | Vinkour | $7,100 |
| 120 | Anderson | Premdas | $7,100 |
| 121 | Thomas | Reynolds | $6,600 |
| 122 | Kamel | Mokhammad | $6,600 |
| 123 | Ryan | Blank | $6,600 |
| 124 | Kenny | Hallaert | $6,600 |
| 125 | Brian | Nerney | $6,600 |
| 126 | Jack | Corrigan | $6,600 |
| 127 | Brent | Hoover | $6,600 |
| 128 | Eric | Bonin | $6,600 |
| 129 | Matthew | Zarcadoolas | $6,600 |
| 130 | Ali | Turkan | $6,600 |
| 131 | Carl | Carodenuto | $6,600 |
| 132 | Geoffrey | Hum | $6,600 |
| 133 | Jeremiah | Wheeler | $6,600 |
| 134 | Olga | Iermolcheva | $6,600 |
| 135 | Craig | Varnell | $6,600 |
| 136 | Kevin | Rines | $6,600 |
| 137 | Steve | Buckner | $6,200 |
| 138 | Asher | Conniff | $6,200 |
| 139 | John | Stevenson | $6,200 |
| 140 | Michael | Stashin | $6,200 |
| 141 | Christian | Harder | $6,200 |
| 142 | Jonathan | Mattia | $6,200 |
| 143 | Stoyko | Kolev | $6,200 |
| 144 | Ronald | Katz | $6,200 |
| 145 | Kurt | Lichtman | $6,200 |
| 146 | Michael | O'Malley | $6,200 |
| 147 | David | Kozma | $6,200 |
| 148 | Frank | Lagodich | $6,200 |
| 149 | Michael | McNicholas | $6,200 |
| 150 | Scott | Ball | $6,200 |
| 151 | Hamed | Zia | $6,200 |
| 152 | Kevin | Davis | $6,200 |
| 153 | Franklin | Rojas | $5,900 |
| 154 | Rudy | Mamo | $5,900 |
| 155 | Daniel | Smiljkovic | $5,900 |
| 156 | Erkut | Yilmaz | $5,900 |
| 157 | Stephen | Gerber | $5,900 |
| 158 | Ya Yun | Liu | $5,900 |
| 159 | Stephen | Kehoe | $5,900 |
| 160 | Jose | Gonzalez | $5,900 |
| 161 | Aaron | Kupin | $5,900 |
| 162 | Brandon | Navarrete | $5,900 |
| 163 | Stephen | Song | $5,900 |
| 164 | Yang | Lu | $5,900 |
| 165 | T.K. | Miles | $5,900 |
| 166 | Steven | Piper | $5,900 |
| 167 | Jesse | Lonis | $5,700 |
| 168 | Glenn | Fishbein | $5,700 |
| 169 | Leonard | Maue | $5,700 |
| 170 | Todd | Miller | $5,700 |
| 171 | Gediminas | Uselis | $5,700 |
| 172 | Jordan | Polk | $5,700 |
| 173 | Matthew | Lambrecht | $5,700 |
| 174 | Benjamin | Grise | $5,700 |
| 175 | Aleksejs | Ponakovs | $5,700 |
| 176 | Artem | Metalidi | $5,700 |
| 177 | Juan | Mora Lasso | $5,700 |
| 178 | Joseph | Petrolino | $5,700 |
| 179 | Anthony | Hu | $5,700 |
| 180 | Jeremy | Mintz | $5,700 |
| 181 | Francis | Anderson | $5,700 |
*denotes modified heads-up payouts