Florida Poker Tournament Ends In 15-Way ChopThe $300, 340-Entry St. Augustine Poker Championship At bestbet Jacksonville Ended With The Final Two Tables Agreeing To An Equal Split |
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It’s the question you often hear in the late stages of small daily poker tournaments. When it’s said with more than one table left, it’s usually a tongue in cheek joke that gets a few laughs around the room.
But that was not the case over the weekend at bestbet St. Augustine when the final 15 players of a $300 buy-in, 340-entry tournament actually decided to stop play and chop up the remaining prizepool.
Despite nearly filling two tables, the remaining players decided to equally divvy up the cash. As a result, each player received $4,460 for their efforts, ensuring all of them a payday of nearly 15 times the buy in.
David Hughes took credit for the win. The Florida native is infamous in the Sunshine State for entering, then winning the $250 ladies event at Seminole Hard Rock Hollywood in May 2023.
Our BIGGEST StAC Tournament to date ended in a 15-way chop! Congratulations to our winners and thank you to all 340 entrants! #bestbetSTA #StAC #PokerTournament #pokerlife #bigchop pic.twitter.com/UzRvbooiV6
— bestbet Poker Room (@bestbet_jax) March 24, 2025
Chops with this many players are very rare. While you may sometimes see a player rallying others to ‘pay the bubble,’ big chops won’t usually be discussed until the final table where everyone can communicate directly.
However, it’s not a completely unprecedented move. Last year, the final 15 players in the Wynn Ladies event also worked out a chop.
But with a $600 buy-in and 209 entries, the buy-in was larger and field size smaller. Nor was it an equal chop. In that event, everyone walked away with at least $4,032, but Lisa Childers got credit for the win, taking home $9,868 and the trophy.
Just a few months before the deal at Wynn, an online tournament saw a chop that gave the winner more than what he would’ve won if they played it out without a deal.
In a tournament on 888poker, the final two players were scheduled to get $8,766 and $6,406. But Ukraine’s “yriy3” and Brazil’s “andrey59” decided to make first-place worth $2,000 more and second worth $2,000 less. The Ukrainian came out on top of the heads-up battle and earned the larger payday.
Florida doesn’t have a regulated online poker industry. But it could be on the way soon if the Seminole Tribe renegotiates their Florida gaming compact.
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