All posts by Luccrazy

Championship Day 1A: Kamel Mokhammad Doubles Through Erik Seidel

$3,500 WPT Poker Showdown Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 10:  1,000/2,000 with a 2,000 ante
Day 1A Players Remaining:  324 of 945

Kamel Mokhammad

Kamel Mokhammad got all in for 23,000 with KdQc in the hole under the gun preflop, and Erik Seidel had him covered holding AcJs] UTG+1.

The final board read AdKs10h7sKc, and Mokhammad doubled up to survive with 51,000 after collecting the pot, and Seidel was down to just 2,500.

Kamel Mokhammad – 51,000 (25 bb)
Erik Seidel – 2,500 (1 bb)

Championship Day 1A: Fawaz Siddiqui Takes One Out

$3,500 WPT Poker Showdown Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 9:  1,000/2,000 with a 2,000 ante
Day 1A Players Remaining:  342 of 945

Fawaz Siddiqui

Fawaz Siddiqui held Ah8h from middle position, and he had the hijack with AcJs in the hole covered.

The final board read 8s8d4h8c6c, and Siddiqui took out his opponent to stack up 233,000 after collecting the pot.

Fawaz Siddiqui – 233,000 (116 bb)

Event 60: Prize Pool and Payouts; $5,155 to the $300 Quad Stack Winner

2024 Poker Showdown
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Hollywood, Florida
Event 60
$300 Quad Stack Final Table Only
Entries:  59
Prize Pool:  $14,750
April 19, 2024

Registration closed for the $300 Quad Stack Final Table Only tournament with 59 entries creating a prize pool worth $14,750. The last nine spots will be paid with $515 for a min-cash and $5,1555 for the champ.

1st: $5,155 + Showdown trophy
2nd: $2,950
3rd: $1,810
4th: $1,290
5th: $1,000
6th: $775
7th: $665
8th: $590
9th: $515

Championship Day 1A: David Sanders Doubles

$3,500 WPT Poker Showdown Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 9:  1,000/1,500 with a 1,500 ante
Day 1A Players Remaining:  423 of 945

David Sanders was all in with pocket aces UTG, and that put him well ahead of the pocket tens held by the button.

The final board read Kc2c2d3s7c, and Sanders stacked up 129,000 after collecting the pot.

David Sanders – 129,000 (86 bb)

Championship Day 1A: Kamel Mokhammad Doubles

$3,500 WPT Poker Showdown Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 8:  600/1,200 with a 1,200 ante
Day 1A Entries:  910

Kamel Mokhammad

Kamel Mokhammad was all in with Qd3d from the big blind, and UTG+1 had him covered holding pocket jacks.

The final board read KdQh6d9d6s, and Mokhammad doubled up to survive with 43,000 after collecting the pot.

Kamel Mohkammad – 43,000 (35 bb)

Championship Day 1A: Michael O’Malley Doubles Up

$3,500 WPT Poker Showdown Championship
$3,000,000 Guaranteed | Structure
Level 7:  500/1,000 with a 1,000 ante
Day 1A Entries:  858

Michael O’Malley

Michael O’Malley was all in for 21,100 with pocket eights UTG+1, and the small blind had him covered holding AhQd.

The final board read Jc8s3s9sQs, and O’Malley stacked up 44,700 after collecting the pot.

Michael O’Malley – 44,700 (44 bb)

Stories from the Showdown: Raminder Singh Extends His Lead in Major Hollywood Titles

Raminder Singh

Raminder Singh extended his lead in Seminole Hard Rock major Hollywood titles earlier during the Showdown tournament series with his victory in the $600 Six-Max NLH event that gave him a dozen overall (see the table below). The Florida poker tournament connoisseur has an impressive trophy collection as you can see from the photo he sent us above. His career tournament earnings now stand above $3 million thanks to all of those tournament wins. We caught up with Singh the other night to chat about reaching this new milestone, and the other things that drive him in poker, business, and life.

When he was asked about how good it felt to take the lead in most major Hollywood titles won, Singh responded: “Absolutely, Seminole Hard Rock is a premium property for poker. It’s one of the best brands obviously. It makes me feel very privileged, and thankful to be in this spot and I’m very happy about it.”

Singh had this to say when asked about the amount of tournaments he plays here at Seminole Hard Rock, “To be brutally honest with you, people see me here many times, but volume-wise I’m taking a lot of days off. As you can see right now I’m coming in showing up last second after work.”

We responded, “So you’re a volume deep-run guy?” Singh laughed and then said, “Yes, volume deep runs. Like Monday I took off completely and I didn’t play. But yeah, when I play you’ve gotta play your best, everybody tries their best. It’s fortunately been working so far.”

Despite Singh’s robust total earnings he still claims that he’s not a poker professional, and he has the work-life balance to back that up. “I have to balance it well in advance between these series. I usually put all of the key events I want to play on the calendar as individual events that I want to play so that I can plan for many. There are many that I can’t play in because of the given commitments with clients and work. My family commitments are very big. I’ll give you an example, for the Main Event at the World Series of Poker in July. I was really looking forward to it, but now my parents are getting very old and they want me to celebrate my 50th birthday in India with them. They can’t travel here in their eighties, so there is that plus a couple of other family events. I’ll be playing some poker tournaments there, but I can’t play the Main Event and it sucks, but there is always the next year,” said Singh.

Singh plays all over the state of Florida, and he has been happy to see the local tournament scene grow here during the last few years thanks in large part to Seminole Hard Rock. “Florida is a such a great state to be playing poker tournaments. It is booming. One series ends here at Hard Rock and then there is Harrah’s, and then you have Palm Beach Kennel Club, and many things at Coconut Creek. Every month there are a couple of good series to play in. So even if you skip a few there is an opportunity to play in the next one. Then I have some clients and business in Jacksonville and Tampa, so I combine with my work and I get to see my teams and clients so it’s double the joy,” said Singh.

The attention for the conversation then turned to how he has brought the different experiences from his life to the poker table. “Actually most of my poker, if you see my wins, and you see my success come down to only two things. My upbringing with my parents, the way we were raised, we grew up very poor. That gives you the grit when you have to go to your neighbors house to watch a black-and-white TV when you can’t afford a TV. But they gave us the best education. That’s one part, and the other part to your question, I dedicate most of my success in poker to my upbringing and my journey thus far where I have learned a lot in business and consulting and education throughout my experiences with people. It’s peaks and valleys, it’s ups-and-downs. It’s less stress than life, but you can leverage a lot of your life experience into poker, and vice-versa,” said Singh.

The poker play pays dividends back to his life experiences as well. “It’s very easy, you leave with a smile. Bad beats happen to everyone, so I tell my nephews – Team Singh, which they came up with as you know. I talk to them, and I tell these youngsters that these values, learning from bad beats, they’re equal for everyone. In the long run nobody will be spared from bad beats and bad runs in poker. Today it could be me, and tomorrow it could be you. Many times you just see somebody winning, and someone running really well. But they don’t see the aces cracked by a random hand multiple times. It happens, it’s a part of the game. It’s how you react to it, you’ve got to stay positive. And you’ve got to stay positive in life, and that’s always one thing that I dedicate to my father, and to my mother. All four of us, my siblings, all of us our doing well in our lives, and you can see where coming from a family like that where they gave a quality education to all four kids, and we all have Masters degrees, multiple degrees. I give all of that credit to my father and my mother. That’s why for my 50th birthday I really wan’t go back and celebrate with them in July, I’m really looking forward to it,” said Singh.

At the end of the interview we had to come full circle and talk about the trophies. When he was asked which of the many trophies in his case is the favorite, here is what Singh had to say: “That’s such a tough question, if you look at the Hendon Mob the total number of majors is around 64, and in total with some nightly tournaments there are about 90. The favorite trophy, hands down, I will say it out loud because I have the favorite trophy and it’s hard to answer. It used to be a RunGood in Vegas, but now it’s the $3,500 win at Lucky Hearts. That’s hands down my favorite trophy. It’s not just because of the type of trophy, or the size of the trophy, or the glamour of it. It was the field that I played against to win it was really awesome. On the final table, one gentleman had five gold bracelets, one gentleman Brian Hastings had six, one WPT champion Jonathan Jaffe is a known figure, one of the best in the business. They played exceedingly well, everyone. I have so much respect for that final table. But we prevailed in the end thankfully. It was a great game of poker at that final table.”

Here are Singh’s 12 SHRP major series victories:

1.  2015 SHRPO – $250 No-Limit Hold’em – ($6,716)
2.  2015 RRPO – $350 NLHE Black Chip Bounty – ($11,400)
3.  2015 RRPO – $350 No-Limit Hold’em – ($15,298)
4.  2018 RRPO – $1,100 No-Limit Hold’em – ($37,706)
5.  2019 SHRPO – $600 No-Limit Hold’em – ($200,000)
6.  2020 LHPO – $600 No-Limit Hold’em Six Max – ($22,520)
7.  2021 SHRPO – $200 Double Green Chip Bounty NLH – ($6,256)
8.  2022 Showdown – $150 No-Limit Hold’em – ($5,008)
9.  2022 RRPO – $600 Turbo No-Limit Hold’em – ($7,897)
10.  2023 Showdown – $400 No-Limit Hold’em – ($12,230)
11.  2024 LHPO – $3,500 No-Limit Hold’em Championship – ($486,353)
12.  2024 Showdown – $600 Six-Max No-Limit Hold’em – ($18,400)