A midweek start for the World Series of Poker circuit event at Harrah’s Resort seems to have tripped up the numbers some as the field for the opening tournament Thursday comes in at just 704.

That’s a nice field to be sure (prize pool $204,864), but almost 550 off last year’s opening tournament field, which started on a Saturday with 1,250 entries

The event is a $300 + $45 No Limit game which continues today. That’s about all we know about first day action so far, but WSOP.com is promising live streaming coverage of the final tables of all ring events. Today’s stream is scheduled to start at 4pm.

Today’s second “ring” event (in which WSOP circuit rings are awarded to the winners), is another $300 + $45 event that could have a much better shot at challenging that 1,250 number.

The event is a three-day tournament with two day ones Friday and Saturday (what The Borgata calls a Double Play). Those who bust out Friday can re-enter Saturday.

There’s also a championship event satellite ($165 + $25) event at 5pm today and a $175 + $25 event at 7pm tonight.

You can get the full schedule here.

The first results are in from the Borgata Fall Poker Open, which has begun to crown event winners.

Musumeci

The opening event of the Open, a $400 Deepstack, no limit tournament drew 970 players with re-buys and posted a total buy-in of $388,000.

The winner was amateur Michael Lydon of Missle Village NY, who wins $84,682.

As always, there may be agreed on splits in these tournaments among the players, but we just go by the official results.

The event did draw some top East Coast pros including Josh Brikis, Eric Siegel, Keith Crowder, Kevin Saul and Mike ‘Little Man’ Sica.

In the Open’s second event, there was a notable win for Amanda Musumeci,  of Philly.

Musumeci has a lot of online experience (under the name manderbutt) and is a Bodog pro, but picks up her first live win in the $260 buy-in tournament. The total buy-in for the event was just under $125,000. Musumeci gets about $31K for the win.

Musumeci came in 62^nd at this year’s WSOP main event and was the second to last woman left standing in the field.

They’re down to 27 players at The Borgata Open and Will Failla is in the chip lead with about 3.3 million.

Will Failla

That means Failla, who won more than $750K at the WPT’s Legends of Poker Main Event last month, is threatening to take the first two events of the World Poker Tour Season.

“The sick part about it is, I don’t think I knocked out one person all day,” Failla, told the Borgata tournament blog.  ”I just played a couple of big pots and don’t remember knocking anybody out.”

There’s a long way to go, however,  and still in the field is Vanessa Selbst, Matt Glantz and John Cernuto, among others.

However, two previous chip leaders are out — Jeff Madsen, who finished in 60th place ($11,740) and David Williams, who was 31st ($16,352).

100 players get paid in the tournament with the winner taking better than $922,000.

The tournament will play down to a final six today, who will then face of at a televised (taped of course) final table on Friday.

Here’s the top five chip leaders:

1. Will Failla – 3,255,000
2. Doug Kim – 2,686,000
3. Ricky Hale – 2,554,000
4. Darren Elias – 2,547,000
5. Fred Goldberg – 2,176,000

A great story has come out of The Borgata Open that once again proves that Yogi Berra was a frickin’ genius. We’re of course referring to his famed poker advice “A hand ain’t over ‘till it’s over.”

Yogi knows

OK, I paraphrase.

But a player in the Open’s $400 + $50 Pot Limit Omaha H/L tournament found out — well not the hard way — but he found out how true that is.

According to the Borgata’s tournament blog, player Douglas Hamshaw was all in for about $7k and was holding 2234 when the flop came out as three high cards.

So he figured he was screwed, got up and left the table.

“I was going for the low and when I saw that (the flop) I gave up,” he later told The Borgata.

Turns out that those high cards included a set of jacks, with the last one coming on the river. Lo and behold, Hamshaw’s deuces gave him a boat and he won the hand.

So a $21K pot was put in front of his seat and Borgata officials, not exactly armed with a lot of info on the guy, went looking for him.

The next thing you know, the bubble breaks and then his stack lasted until the end of the day’s play, when Hamshaw was finally found at a slot machine.

He’s one of 17 players left going into today’s play.

I had just lost a big pot and had so few chips that I cashed it in mentally,” said Hamshaw. “The lesson is stay until the hand is really over.”

Yogi already knew that.

Two events are in the books at The Borgata Open including the first event of the open, which may have set an entry record for an Atlantic City tournament.

We say may have, because we have absolutely no idea where to check on it. But 1,718 entries were made in the $400 + $50 event, which is the highest total for a tournament we’ve heard since the blog started. And that is a record for the Borgata Open.

Maglio

The winner was Vincent Maglio of Revere Ma., who has some Vegas and Foxwoods cashes on his record, but seems to have his first A.C. cash (in major tournament action anyway) and his highest pay day ever at $140,582.

The tournament had a guaranteed $300,000 prize pool, but with the massive turnout more than doubled that with a total buy-in of more than $687K.

Second went to Joe Wertz of Montoursville Pa., who’s been a regular at Borgata and A.C. events since 2008. He wins $87,989.

The Open also has finished Event 3, a $300 + $50 Omaha event that attracted 190 players. The winner was amateur Yuebin Guo of New York who wins $19,351.

Event 2, a $350 + $50 + $100 bounty tournaments continues today with 23 of 513 players still standing and Event 4, a two-day, $500 + $60 No limit event starts  at 11am.

The Borgata has scheduled a couple of big tournament events this month, which should spice up the middle of July.

First comes a $100,000 guaranteed Saturday Series tournament on July 16. The Saturday series events are run in months when the casino does not offer one of its seasonal opens, so you can expect one in August as well.

The $350 + $50 tournament starts players with 15K in chips. The one-day tournament starts at 11am.

The next day, Sunday July 17, continuing to July 20, The Borgata combines three of its most popular gimmicks into one tournament.

In short, the tournament is a Deepstack, Double Play, Bounty tournament.

The buy-in is $1,000 + $90 + $100 (the bounty). The prize pool is guaranteed at $250,000. (more…)

The Champ

And we have a winner of The Borgata Summer Open Championship as Tyng Low, 27, of Flushing N.Y. claims the crown and $211,484.

“Good, great, tremendous, fabulous,” Low told The Borgata’s tournament blog. “It means a lot. I’ve been trying to hit one like this for five years.”

Haven’t we all.

The final heads up play came between Low and Farid Jattin of Miami, who has racked up about $155,000 in tournament wins in Florida .

Low played a seven and three of hearts and actually flopped a straight  when five, six, four came out. Jattin was playing six, two of clubs, which gave him top pair, but went down to Low after failing to hit a straight flush draw. He wins $117,481.

Low finished 19^th at last year’s open championship (and spent some time as chip leader), winning about $3700, but took the the trophy this time.

The Borgata Summer Open started off fairly well Wednesday as 829 players (including re-buys) turned out for the first event, a $350 buy-in Deepstack event.

Undoubtedly, some of those players were looking to take advantage of the casino’s air conditioning as well, because man it’s hot here in A.C. right now. Yesterday set a record for the date in the city at 98 degrees.

The event has a total buy-in of $290,150 .

The chip leader going into today’s second day is Kenneth Smaron of Philly with 1,214,000 in chips.

Some notables in the field include Sheree Bykofsky of A.C., still alive with 94K and Gordon Eng, of Clifside Park, with 105K in chips.

The bubble was broken at the tournament at 81 players and the remaining 48 are all in the money.

Today, the casino launches the first of its “bounty” games, where each player puts up an extra $25 as a bounty. Whenever a player is sent to the rail, that $25 chip goes to the player that took them out. The $200 + $30 + $25 (the bounty) No Limit Hold’em tournament starts at 11am.

Quick note: The Borgata’s blog is saying the bounty is $20, but previous schedules say $25. So it’s one or the other.

(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

The Borgata Spring Poker Open gets underway Wednesday, April 13. Last year’s opening event brought in more than  1,200 players.

Here’s the structure for the kick-off tournament.

General Rules

• Players will start with 25,000 in tournament chips.
• On-Site Registration for all Borgata Spring Poker Open events will be held in the Poker Room:
  • Tuesday, April 12th: 9AM until Midnight
  • Wednesday, April 13th through Monday, April 25th:  8AM until Midnight (daily)
  • Tuesday, April 26th through Friday, April 29th:  9AM until 9PM (daily)
• Alternates and late sign-ups for this event will be allowed to enter during the first six (6) Levels of this event.  Late sign-ups that require a new stack of chips to be placed on a table will have the equivalent of the small blind extracted from the stack every twenty (20) minutes the tournament has elapsed.
• Player that are eliminated within the first six (6) Levels may Re-Enter up to two (2) additional times.
• Levels 1-10:  each will last 30 minutes | Levels 11+:  each Level will last 40 minutes.
• Day 1 will end at 2AM.. Tournament director will have final say in all matters concerning length of play in tournaments.
• Ten (10) minute break after every three (3) Levels.
• Forty minute dinner break at 7PM.
• Redraw for seats and tables end of Day 1.  Redraw at 18 and 10 players or at discretion of Tournament Director.
• Tournament Director decisions are final and without recourse.
• Borgata reserves the right to alter, change, or cancel tournament.  Borgata will not be held responsible in the event of typographical errors or misinformation on the website or printed material pertaining to this event, and players will not have claim in these matters.
• This is a two-day tournament.  Day 2 starts at 12PM.
• Seating may be limited.
• Residents of foreign countries without a U.S. tax treaty will be subject to withholdings.