The penultimate WPT Championship Event of Season 21 did not disappoint. A grand total of 1,447 entries fired the $3,500 buy-in to the WPT Seminole Rock ’N’ Roll Poker Open, crushing the $3 million guarantee and pushing the prize pool to just over $4.6 million dollars. There’s a lot at stake with a potentially life-changing $752,500 first-place prize (which includes a seat to the upcoming WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas) awaiting the winner, the second-largest Championship Event payday of the year to date.
And with only six remaining in the field, each is promised no less than $157,800, which for a few, is already a career-high score.
The WPT Seminole final table will be available to watch from every corner of the internet including WPT’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch channels starting at 2:30 p.m. ET. But before you kick back and watch the action, let’s get to know everyone who is in the running for a piece of poker history and a spot on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup.
Istvan Briski – 24,000,000 (Chip Leader)
Home Country: Hungary
Resides: Ady Eadrwe, Hungary
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $235,968
Biggest Lifetime Cash: 3rd, $777 WSOP Lucky 7’s for $226,777
Other Prominent Scores: 5th, $5,000 WSOP Online Main Event for $883,404, 4th $10,000 WSOP Super Millions Online for $451,883
Briski’s live poker resume may not look terribly impressive (although to be fair, a WSOP final table for more than a quarter-million is nothing to scoff at), but it’s clear he knows exactly what he’s doing. In addition to showing off his skills in playing down to this WPT final table, he’s been known to do a lot of damage playing online. Briski posted incredible results in the 2022 WSOP Online (International) series, taking in more than $1.3 million in less than a month that year.
Briski finished Day 3 of the WPT Seminole Rock ‘N’ Roll Poker Open as the chip leader, leading the final 15 into the home stretch, and holds that honor again following Day 4. A fourth-place finish will give the Hungarian a new live high score, and a victory will push him up over $1 million in live earnings just four years after his first recorded live tournament cash.
End of Day 1 chips: 114,000
End of Day 2 chips: 1,615,000 (8th in chips)
End of Day 3 chips: 11,875,000 (chip leader)
Sandy Sanchez – 18,300,000
Home Country: USA
Resides: Fort Lauderdale, FL
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $282,522
Biggest Lifetime Cash: 4th, 2021 WSOP $1,500 Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or Better for $51,590
Other Prominent Scores: 2nd, $600 WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open NLHE Deep Stack Six-Max $26,925
Local Florida player Sandy Sanchez is in the midst of the tournament of his life. Traditionally, a player who specializes in events with a buy-in in the $300-$600 range, Sanchez has made the most of his opportunity in this Championship Event by cruising into the final table and proving that sometimes all you need is a shot.
No matter what happens at the final table, this will be a career-high cash for Sanchez, and he has a real chance at eclipsing the entirety of his career earnings, which he’d do with a third-place finish or better.
End of Day 1 chips: 113,000
End of Day 2 chips: 1,030,000
End of Day 3 chips: 9,575,000 (2nd in chips)
Fred Goldberg – 13,025,000
Home Country: USA
Resides: Hollywood, FL
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $3,060,570
Biggest Lifetime Cash: 10th, 2006 WSOP Main Event for $4,154,527
Other Prominent Scores: 4th, 2011 $3,500 WPT Borgata Poker Open for $280,925, 1st, 2007 WSOP $1,500 Mixed Hold’em for $204,935
Fred Goldberg is a bit of a local legend, most famously finishing in 10th place in the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event. It was the height of the poker boom, and over the next couple of years Goldberg was making waves in poker, with a couple of deep runs on the fledgling WPT, and a WSOP bracelet win in 2007.
Now, nearly 15 years later, Goldberg continues to prove himself in making his career third World Poker Tour final table. Even with a win, Goldberg can’t eclipse his million-dollar payday from back in 2006, but he can still make plenty of personal history. Not only does Goldberg have another chance of having his name engraved on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup, but a third-place finish would become the second-largest score of his extensive career.
Goldberg found good fortune on a critical hand on Day 4, when his pocket jacks ran over Alejandro Gonzalez Olaechea’s pocket kings with a 
in the window on the flop.
“It was a beautiful thing,” said Goldberg. “It was a roller coaster, but I feel great. I got lucky a couple of times, I’m very grateful for that, but I got unlucky a lot, [too], so that’s poker.”
End of Day 1 chips: 27,000
End of Day 2 chips: 435,000
End of Day 3 chips: 3,750,000 (6th in chips)
Rayan Chamas – 10,000,000
Home Country: Lebanon
Resides: Byblos, Quebec
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $547,669
Biggest Lifetime Cash: 5th, $3,300 CAD PokerStars Canada Cup for $84,070
Other Prominent Scores: 36th, 2023 $25,000 PokerStars Players Championship for $81,400, 8th 2017 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS for $58,253
It was an up-and-down Day 4 for Rayan Chamas who, with 15 remaining, sat third in chips. The next thing he knew he was sitting near the bottom of the chip counts. But a critical double-up through Jason Sagle with 11 left helped vault him back into the middle of the pack. He felt the pressure all throughout play-down day, oscillating between a top-3 chip stack and on the final table bubble.
“I started as table chip leader, got up to tournament chip leader, and then within 20 minutes, I’m one of the shortest stacks when there’s 10 people left. Now I’m back and I have chips. It’s all a roller coaster,” Chamas said.
“This is a really tough final table. Not only are they very good, but they have extremely different styles. You have one of the best players online, the current chip leader, and then you have some people that I watched on TV many, many years ago on the World Series and WPT stuff. They’re not playing the same style of poker. You always have to adjust and figure out what they’re thinking. I think it’ll be a very fun final table.”
But that wild day is in the past and now, as he heads into the final 6, Chamas is ready to ride that wave wherever it takes him. The content creator and streamer, who’s looking to find redemption for a second-place finish in the 2021 WPT Montreal online event in 2021 by finishing one spot higher, already has a new career-high live score locked up. It’s the first live six-figure cash of his career, and now he’s looking for his first outright win to put on his poker resume.
End of Day 1 chips: 419,000 (3rd in chips)
End of Day 2 chips: 1,760,000 (5th in chips)
End of Day 3 chips: 7,925,000 (3rd in chips)
Darryll Fish – 4,600,000
Home Country: USA
Resides: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $5,066,420
Biggest Lifetime Cash: 2nd, 2018 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS for $937,221
Other Prominent Scores: 1st, 2018 $3,500 WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open for $511,604, 2nd 2017 $3,500 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown for $453,185
World Poker Tour Champions Club member Darryll Fish is not just one of the most experienced players at this final table, he’s one of the most accomplished players in all of Florida. With a WPT victory in the 2018 Lucky Hearts Poker Open and a runner-up finish in the 2017 Hard Rock Poker Showdown, Fish has now accomplished a WPT Hollywood trifecta – earning a seat at three different WPT Championship Events hosted at Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood.
Fish is also something of a WPT pro with more than $1.7 million of his just over $5 million lifetime live earnings coming from WPT branded events. This is his seventh WPT final table and 21st WPT cash. He’s enjoyed plenty of success in his home state too, with six of his last seven WPT cashes taking place at the Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood Hotel & Casino. Fish has racked up 11 six-figure scores over the past 15 years, with this being his 12th. A win would be the second-largest score of his career.
Fish’s path to a second career title on Wednesday will be tall, as he’s one of the shorter stacks, but he kept his cool as the action largely played out without him for long stretches on Day 4.
“It was kind of weird, there was definitely a lull where nobody busted for a long time,” said Fish.” When there were two tables left, the other table was playing a lot heavier action. It seemed like they were playing a bunch of big pots and we weren’t. So that was kind of weird but still nobody busted while they were playing big hands. That’s just how it goes in tournaments, there’s ebbs and flows. Then at the end it went pretty fast.”
End of Day 1 chips: 168,500
End of Day 2 chips: 1,215,000
End of Day 3 chips: 3,650,000 (7th in chips)
Matt Bond – 3,300,000
Home Country: USA
Resides: Irving, Texas
Lifetime Live Tournament Earnings: $2,281,443
Biggest Lifetime Cash: 35th, 2017 WSOP Main Event for $214,913
Other Prominent Scores: 1st, 2022 PokerGO Aria $10K High Roller for $153,000, 2nd 2016 WSOP Circuit Baltimore $1,675 Main Event for $180,750
Matt Bond has been racking up cashes for a decade and has, impressively, put together more than $2.2 million in earnings with seven six-figure scores. However, Bond is still searching for that top-of-resume signature victory, He has victories for sure, including a takedown of one of the Aria’s $10K High Rollers, but it’s likely he’s hungry for something akin to a spot on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup.
He has $283,453 in cashes on the World Poker Tour, including making the final two tables in three Championship Events. Even though he’s the short stack headed into the final table with roughly 16 big blinds, Bond has a chance to close out one of his previous near misses for that definition win.
End of Day 1 chips: 60,000
End of Day 2 chips: 1,935,000 (2nd in chips)
End of Day 3 chips: 7,575,000 (4th in chips)