In a tournament that moved underneath the radar – seriously, there wasn’t much on it before or during play – the World Poker Tour has crowned a new champion. At the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown in Hollywood, FL, Ian Cohen rode his start-of-day chip lead to the title. Most impressive, however, was the performance of the player he defeated, former professional football (American) player and Super Bowl champion Richard Seymour, who battled off the short stack to finish in the runner-up spot.
Sizeable Field Creates Monster Prize Pool
The players certainly came out for the festivities, even if the event’s coverage was on the down low. 1,417 entries were received in the $3,500 buy-in tournament, creating a $4,534,400 prize pool, with 178 players earning a piece of the pie. For the six men who came to the felt on Wednesday afternoon at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, FL, they would all earn six-figure paydays, with a guaranteed $138,000 for the first departure and a $645,800 windfall for the eventual champion.
For Cohen, sitting on 17.95 million chips, the job was simple: hold the chip lead that he came to the final table with to the end. It was going to be difficult for Cohen as virtually every player at the final table had an ample stack for patience at the table. Michael Amato was close behind Cohen at the start, holding 16.2 million chips, while Frank Funaro (13.925 million), Raj Vohra (10.075 million), and Johnny Bromberg (7.1 million) were looking to fight. At the bottom of the standings was Seymour, holding only 5.6 million chips, but it was enough to make him a force on the baize.
While having chips is good, having some luck is good too. That came in the first dozen hands for Seymour, who would commit his chips against the leader, Cohen. After Cohen called Seymour’s bet, the reality came to the fore:
Seymour (small blind): A-10
Cohen (cutoff): A-Q
The situation was not looking good for Seymour, and the 3-J-7-2 flop and turn had the “fat lady” warming up in the wings. A ten fell on the river, however, giving Seymour the thunderbolt that he needed to stay alive in the tournament. At the end of the hand, Seymour was now in contention with his thirteen million chips, while Cohen fell out of the chip lead.
These newfound chips brought out the aggression in Seymour, a former member of the New England Patriots during their Super Bowl era. He would be highly active after picking up that double, knocking Vohra out in sixth place. But it was Funaro who would stake a claim to the championship, eliminating Bromberg from the final table when his A-J caught an unnecessary Jack on the flop against Bromberg’s A-6 in fifth place, and became the new chip leader.
The Seymour/Funaro fight was one of the highlights of the final table, and Seymour would come out on the winning side of it. He would double through Funaro on Hand #85, then eliminate Funaro in fourth place on Hand #93 when his A-Q defeated Funaro’s 10-9. With that win, Seymour moved into an unlikely position, considering where he started…the chip lead.
From Three to One…
Seymour’s lead wasn’t a massive one over Cohen (28.8 million to 22.5 million), and Michael Amato still lurked with nearly twenty million (19.5 million, to be exact). Whichever two players came out of the three-way battle, it was likely that one was going to have a massive chip lead for heads-up play. It would only take a few hands to determine who those two players would be, and who the player with the big edge would be in the heads-up fight.
In one of the more entertaining hands of the final table, Cohen raised the betting off the button and saw Amato defend his big blind. A J-9-4 flop came down, and Amato check-called a two-million chip bet from Cohen. The A♥ on the turn brought another check-call from Amato, this time for three million. A river King saw Amato check again, but this time Cohen moved all-in to put Amato to the test. After some deliberation, Amato called off his stack and saw the sad news:
Amato (big blind): A-9 (two pair)
Cohen (button): Q-10 (rivered Broadway straight)
It would be interesting to know the thought processes behind this hand. If Amato had moved all in on the turn, would Cohen have called with just a gutterball draw? Alas, we will never know as Cohen scooped up the pot to go to heads-up play against Seymour with a big lead (43.9 million to 26.9 million).
Although Cohen would hold the lead for much of the heads-up action, Seymour more than demonstrated his skills on the felt. Over the 93 hands of heads-up play, Seymour would fight for every chip on the table and, at a couple of points, eke his way into the lead. But it would all come to an end on Hand #188 of the final table.
After Cohen limped in, Seymour would pop the bet to ten million chips, and Cohen moved all-in. Seymour made the call and saw that he had made the right move, putting himself in position to take a massive lead in the event:
Seymour (big blind): pocket tens
Cohen (button/small blind): pocket sevens
There was an 81% likelihood of Seymour winning the hand, but the seven in the window of the 7-6-2 flop did not care about those statistics. Cohen’s set of sevens would stand up as the turn Jack and the river Queen didn’t bring Seymour what he was looking for, crowning Cohen the latest champion at the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown.
1. Ian Cohen, $656,200
2. Richard Seymour, $430,000
3. Michael Amato, $320,000
4. Frank Funaro, $240,000
5. Johnny Bromberg, $181,000
6. Raj Vohra, $164,000
For Cohen, the 2026 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown is the first major title for his mantlepiece, sitting alongside his WSOP-C ring won back in 2024. For Seymour, it is his largest cash in a poker tournament of his career, topping his third-place finish in the 2018 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure High Roller ($376,360). And for the World Poker Tour, it is the final event before they take their summertime hiatus for the World Series of Poker. It is expected that the WPT will announce its second-half schedule on June 1, when we learn how they will conclude their 2026 season.
