2024 Poker Showdown
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Hollywood, Florida
Event 1
$400 Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry)
$1,000,000 Guaranteed
Entries: 4,772
Prize Pool: $1,574,760
April 3 – 8, 2024
Jesus Martinez made his first trip to the Seminole Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida a good one by topping the field in Event 1 for the top prize worth $169,690 along with the guitar pick trophy in a heads-up chop with Brian Hawkins to bring play to a close. We caught up with Martinez after the win to chat about his victory.
“It feels really good man, I’ve come close in a lot of tournaments. It’s been hard to close them out. A lot of seconds, a lot of thirds so it feels good to finally get there and over the hump,” said Martinez after claiming his first tournament trophy to take his career tournament earnings well above $400,000.
He continued, “It was a lot of heartbreak, a lot of heartache, but I changed a lot of habits, changed a lot of life things, and now we see where we are. It’s been paying off, and the variance is coming around now.”
The Texas native decided to make the trip to Seminole for the Showdown series, and that choice turned out to be a good one. “I’m from San Antonio, Texas so this is my first time over here. I really like it, it’s been fun. I will definitely be back. It’s mostly home games at home that I play. I’m playing one more here, the $200 entry and then I have to get back for some family stuff,” said Martinez.
When asked about his first impression with Seminole Hard Rock poker tournaments after his experience, Martinez responded: “I really like it, the floor guys and all of you guys are real nice, real cool. I liked the way everything was run well. And the turnout was amazing, not bad for a $400 tournament with over 4,700 people.”
The biggest hand at the final table for Martinez saw him make a straight on the turn with 
in the hole (you can see above that he requested those cards for the winner photo). His opponent Eugene Kotlyarevskiy was trying to make a move in the hand with queen-high, but Martinez used his previous experience playing against Kotlyarevskiy to his advantage. “It was blind versus blind three-handed. He put in the raise and you have to call. It was a really good flop for me coming K-3-2. I knew he was more on the aggressive side already so I took that into account. We had some dynamic from yesterday too, and when the flop came I just wasn’t folding. I put in a raise there, and if the raise was a bit larger I might have folded. And luckily it was a perfect turn, because any other turn I would have had to get away,” said Martinez.
He continued, “Last night before we bagged up he and I had played some big hands together. He saw how I was playing, and I saw how he was playing so obviously you take that into account. You can’t just raise anyone there with the five-high, and he had the queen-high when we showed down.”
And as far as his celebration plans for the evening were concerned. “We want to go hang out for a little bit, maybe take off to party somewhere down in Fort Lauderdale,” said Martinez with a grin at the end of the interview.
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