Maria Ho

With the Borgata Spring Open winding down today, the city settles into regular tournament action for the rest of the weekend.

Meanwhile, the city’s bad beat jackpots are still recovering from a slew of hits in recent weeks. In fact, Thursday, the small bad beat jackpot hit at the Borgata for about $50,000.

The Borgata offers a total bad beat jackpot and a small jackpot. The small jackpot sets quad deuces as the minimum hand. Quad 10s is the minimum for the full jackpot.

The jackpot hit in a $1-$2 No Limit game early Thursday when quad 3s lost to quad 6s.

Dennis Glynn of Monmouth County held the 3s and won $20,000. The hand winner, Eric Liu of Livingston won $10,000. Seven other players at the table won $2,857.

But that still leaves the Borgata’s full bad beat jackpot at $282,882 as the small jackpot reset to $50,000.

The Caesars Combined bad beat jackpot is at $197,227 and should be at quad 10s as the minimum. The Tropicana’s bad beat is at $192,000 and The Taj Mahal comes in at about $95,000.

This week’s picture is of pro player Maria Ho, who was seen at the Borgata Spring Open this week, but didn’t cash in the championship.

Well, nobody said it was easy.

The Borgata hasn’t even finished up its spring open — looks like they got better than 200 players for today’s main event finale, a $250 + $30 Deepstack No Limit event — and the casino is announcing dates for its summer open.

This year’s summer open will run from June 8 to 24 with the championship event to run June 19 to 22. The championship will be a $2,500 + $200 No Limit tournament with a $500,000 guarantee.

While an exact event schedule hasn’t been released, that sounds suspiciously like the schedule for the spring open. Both are 17 days long and have the same buy-in for the championship event.

Still, the summer championship has a $500 bump from last year’s summer open championship (that $2,000 buy-in No Limit tournament drew 361 players in 2010).

The summer open, of course, competes with the World Series of Poker at the Rio in Las Vegas, which starts May 30, but does avoid the WSOP main event, which starts July 7.

And if you want to nitpick, only the last four days of the Borgata event actually happen in the summer.

But whatever.

Harrah’s Resort will introduce a new daily tournament structure starting Sunday May 1. The casino is adding Stud, Omaha and Limit Hold’em games to the schedule, as well as revamping blinds structures.

Most of the new games will be offered at 10:15am.

The schedule reflects a bump in buy-ins for the casino on weekdays. Harrah’s had been offering daily $40 + $10 games at 10:15 am, for example.

As one of the city’s bigger rooms with 40 tables, it could signal that the casino is trying to tap into the higher-end tournament market usually dominated by The Borgata.

(more…)

The Borgata Spring Open Championship has gone to a New Jersey based player, Russell Crane of Howell Twp. New Jersey, who scores his biggest payday yet with the $276,949 win.

The Champ

All we can say is ‘Whoo Hoo, go Howell’ (which just happens to be your blogger’s hometown).

“It hasn’t hit me yet,” Crane told the Borgata’s poker blog. “It felt great to have a lot of people from my home state supporting me.”

Crane had about $376,000 in live tournament cashes before his Spring Open win. He had a huge $220K cash at the 2009 World Series of Poker (a 3^rd place finish in a No Limit Hold’em six handed event), but most of his other cashes have come in Atlantic City during his about six- year career.

(more…)

Cards are in the air at The Borgata Spring Open Championship as 25 remaining players play down to a champion today.

Eriquezzo

Going into today’s action, the chip leader is Ryan Eriquezzo of Danbury Conn, with 997K. Eriquezzo has about $400,000 in live tournament winnings, including a first at the Borgata Winter Open in January in a No Limit Hold’em Six Max Tournament that netted him about $71,000.

45 players cash in the championship tournament with 1^st winning $276,949.

Here are the top five chip leaders.

1. Ryan Eriquezzo 997k
2. Adam Agaev 927k
3. Bart Dowling 927k
4. Jason Helder 880k
5. Matt Matros 839k

Even as the Borgata Spring Open plays out, the casino is looking ahead to May. And probably just in the nick of time as the current schedule for upcoming special poker tournament events in Atlantic City can be summed up as nada, zilch, nothing.

Save, of course for the Borgata, which has scheduled a $250,000 guaranteed, Deepstack, Double Play tournament for May 15 to 18.

The Borgata loves the double play, which is basically a re-buy on Day 1B for those who wash out on Day 1A. Even the currently underway spring open championship — 99 players left when last we looked — is a double play.

Satellites for the event start May 8 with a $110 + $20 at 11am.

Two $220 + $30 No Limit Hold’em qualifiers will be held Saturday, May 14 and Sunday, May 15, both at 4pm.

The main tournament starts May 15 and 16 (days 1A and 1B) at 11 am with play continuing May 17 and 18. Starting stack is 30K.

The casino has also announced the continuation of its Saturday series (which is saved for months when there are no seasonal opens) on May 21. The $100,000 guaranteed, $350 + $50 No Limit tournament is a one-day event. Starting stack is 15K.

There’s a reason The Borgata has the city’s No. 1 poker room.

As we guessed, The Borgata Spring Open’s championship event saw a much better Monday turnout than on Easter Sunday as more than 300 players came out for the $2,500 + $200 event.

The final total was 447 entries, with a total buy-in of $1,117,500. That easily covers the $500,000 guarantee of the tournament. The winner will receive $276,949.

Of course, it was a double play tournament, so the 447 doesn’t equal 447 individuals, just 447 buy-ins.

Going into today’s play, 165 players remain, but we won’t see the bubble break until 45 players are left.

Here’s the chip leaders going into Day 2

1. MARK WAHBA (CLEVELAND, OH): 345,300

2. ERIC HABER (MUTTON TOWN, NY): 249,700

3. ANDREW BROWN (VALATIE, NY): 224,900

4. BARTLEY DOWLING (NEW YORK, NY): 224,800

5. AARON OVERTON (PHILADELHIA, PA): 221,000

Some notables still left include Eric Siegal at 95K and Gordon Eng at 60,400. Kathy Liebert and Maria Ho appear to be gone.

Play resumes today at 11am

Beautiful weather — for most of the day anyway — and Easter hams seem to have kept the turnout for the Borgata Spring Open’s $2,500 + $200 championship opener Sunday low as only about 123 players took advantage of the tournament’s first day.

Day 1A Chip Leader Liberta

While that’s about $200,000 off the tournament’s  $500,000 guarantee, fear not, today is also an opening session, day 1B, and should make up the difference. The tournament is also a double play, meaning players who busted out Sunday can re-buy in today.

Still, at $2,700 a pop, well see how many take advantage.

Only 42 players survived to today, with Joseph Liberta of Berlin the chip leader at 183K. last year’s championship winner, Alexander Queen of Bethlehem Pa, is in third with 154K.

Some notable pros in the first day of play were Kathy Liebert, Maria Ho and Eric Siegal.

Day 1B gets underway at 11am.

This is the big weekend for the Borgata Spring Open as The Spring Open Championship gets underway Easter Sunday at 11am. The $2,500 + $200 No Limit Tournament splits its opening day between Sunday and Monday, April 25. The event carries a $500,000 prize pool guarantee.

Lucy Pinder

There’s also a nice warm-up Saturday with a SIX MAX No Limit Hold’em,  $1,000 + $90 tournament at 11am.

Also, the open doesn’t shut down after the championship begins and five more main events are scheduled after the start of the championship event through Friday. You can get the schedule here.

As for the city’s bad beat jackpots, late word has come down about a hit last Sunday, April 17, of the Caesars combined bad beat.

The jackpot hit for $267,581.63, at Bally’s. Quad kings got tripped up by a king high straight flush. The bad beat winner was paid $80,691, the hand winner got $53,933 and 321 players in Harrah’s rooms — Caesars, Harrah’s Resort, Showboat and Bally’s — received $417.

That leaves the Caesars bad beat at about $153,000 going into the weekend. The Borgata now has the highest jackpot in the city, even as the Borgata Spring Open is underway. The casino’s full jackpot is at $279,623, quad 10s the minimum, while the small jackpot (quad deuces to nines) is at $50,000.

The Taj Mahal is still recovering from a hit and is at $67,327 while the Tropicana’s bad beat is at about $180,000.

Happy Easter grinders.

We’ve speculated that the demise of online poker would provide a bump at live poker rooms as players come out of their dank and dusty bedrooms to play against actual live people.

Well, Cardplayer.com decided to look for early signs and made some calls to poker rooms around the country.

That included this check-in with Harrah’s Resort poker manager John Arthur.

“Perhaps hit the hardest by the recession, Atlantic City card rooms are hoping to see a nice spike in room traffic following the DOJ’s indictments. At Harrah’s, the 40-table poker room has experienced a small bump, but Director of Poker John Arthur has noticed more online players comparing each room’s player loyalty programs.

“’I’ve seen a number of players stop by and ask about our various promotions,” said Arthur. “These guys are used to being rewarded for their online play and now they are looking for whatever edge they can find in the live setting. Whatever they decide, we are more than ready for their business.’”

Cardplayer called rooms in California, Las Vegas and several other parts of the country. Nearly all the poker managers reported a slight increase in players, some saying as much as a 20 percent bump. Read the story here.

One week out from Black Friday, it looks like poker is going live around the country.