As expected, Day 1A of the Borgata Open brought out some big names as 460 players turned out for the first of two opening days Sunday. Day 1B for the $3,300 + $200 event is today.

Vanessa Selbst

Among the chip leaders after Day 1A is Vanessa Selbst at number two with 198,675 in chips.

Also among the day 1A chip leaders is Will “The Thrill” Failla, who won more than $750K at the WPT’s Legends of Poker Main Event last month, the first WPT event of the season. Failla is a common site at Borgata events and told WPT.com that he calls Atlantic City and the casino home.

He was in fourth on the chip count with 189K.

The chip leader is Abraham Korotki, of Bethany Beach De. with 260,100 in chips. Korotki is also an experienced A.C. player with numerous cashes in the resort and close to $700,000 in tournament winnings. Much of those winnings came form a 1^st at the 2006 WSOP Circuit event at Harrah’s, where he won $433K.

Some other notables seen on Day 1A are Dwyte Pilgrim, Maria Ho,  Roy Winston, Gordon Eng, Chris Bell, Steve Danneman, John Racener, Jeff Madsen  … It’s kind of a long list.

Still, many of these pros, such as Pilgrim, will be re-buying today.

Even though the championship event is underway, there are still some other tournaments today including a $270 + $30 + $100 Black Chip Bounty NLH at 3pm and a $150 + $30 NLH at 6pm.

Meanwhile, The Tropicana’s bad beat jackpot apparently survived the weekend (unless it hit late Sunday) and is at $516,000.

So it’s a busy Monday in A.C.

The Championship event at The Borgata Winter Open is down to 37 players, and should play down to a final table today.

167 players had made it to Day 3 and the bubble was at 72 players.

The bubble boy was amateur Tim Latouch. His K-Q ran into LJ Sande’s J-J which failed to connect on a board of: A-9-5-5-6, according to the casino’s tournament blog.

Almost simultaneously, another player, Bob Courtney of Millbury Ma., busted out as well, but since he went into his hand with $500 more than Latouch’s 78K, he got the first cash of the tournament, good for $6,655.

So Latouche, who had a chance to fold after Courtney went down, played out the hand and missed a cash by 500.

The chip leader going into today is Or Abramov of Israel with 1,687,000 in chips.

We don’t have an official chip count, but other big stacks include:

Roz Quarto – 1.426 million
Trevor Savage – 1.392 million
Osagyefo Greene – 1.108 million
Tom Hu – 987k
Gavin Smith – 973k
Max Gurevich – 928k
Pat Carney – 902k
Nick Ricciardi – 898k
Aryeh Grunewald – 829k

Selbst and Gavin Smith

Vanessa Selbst didn’t make it to the bubble and went down when she got tripped up by a suck out draw on the river that gave her opponent, Ara Melikian, quad 10s. Selbst had gone all in with a straight after the flop against a set of 10s.

Here’s today’s action at the open, which finishes up tomorrow.

Noon – Event 25: $260 + $40 No Limit Hold’em

• 1 Re-Entry
• 10,000 in starting chips
• Levels 1-6: each will last 30 minutes Levels 7+: each will last 40 minutes
• 1-day event

6pm – Event 58: $100 + $20 No Limit Hold’em

• 10,000 in starting chips
• Levels last 20 minutes
• 1-day event

When we saw Vanessa Selbst’s name on the chip list after Day 1 of the Borgata Winter Open Championship, we wondered if she could survive short stacked and if one of the hottest players of 2010 would be making a quick exit.

Selbst

We should have known better.

Selbst has not only survived, she’s at No. 5 on the list as 167 players get ready for Day 3 action today with close to 297K in chips.

“A lot better than 20-thousand,” Selbst told the Borgata. “Not a bad day.”

The chip lead, however, goes to another women, Roslyn Quarto of Edison NJ.

Quarto has had a lot of small cashes at Borgata events, but scored a first at The Borgata Open in September and a cash of about $27,000 in a No Limit event. She also had an eighth place finish at the WSOP ladies tournament in 2008, good for about $36K.

Quarto

According the The Borgata’s tournament blog, Quarto got off to a good start by winning a 150k pot when she turned a queen high flush and knocked out two people who had sets.

“I was playing well and put out a couple of bluffs and got lucky,” she said. “You can’t accumulate this many chips without some luck. I only lost one flip all day.”

So it looks like the ladies ruled Day 2 of the championship.

Some other notables still in the field are Gavin Smith and Brian Lemke.

Here’s the top five chip leaders:

Roslyn Quarto 450,200

Jack Schanbacher 400,500

Robert Courtney 340,700

Derek Buonano 329,000

Vanessa Selbst 296,700

There’s also still non-championship events running today, and here’s that schedule:

Noon – Event 24: $170 + $30 No Limit Hold’em
$50,000 Guaranteed

• 2 Re-Entry
• 10,000 in starting chips
• Levels 1-6: each will last 30 minutes Levels 7+: each will last 40 minutes
• 1-day event

6pm – Event 57: $100 + $20 No Limit Hold’em

• 10,000 in starting chips
• Levels last 20 minutes
• 1-day event

It was freakin’ carnage for big name pros Monday at Day 2 of the World Series of Poker circuit events Regional Championship at Harrah’s Resort with names such as Vanessa Selbst (the Day 1 chip leader), Jordan Morgan, “Miami” John Cernuto, Brock Parker, Bernard Lee, Dwyte Pilgrim, Nick Schulman and TJ Cloutier hitting the rail.

The  $9,700 event played down to 27 players going into today’s Day 3 action.

Selbst

Selbst couldn’t continue her amazing 2010 run in this, the last big tournament of the year. Still, she has nearly $3 million in tournament cashes this year, so she’ll probably get by.

The WSOP offered this rundown of the hand that did her in:

“The decisive blow to her stack came in a hand with 2009 Harrah’s Resort WSOP Circuit Main Event champion, Chris Klodnicki

Holding pocket kings on a 10h, Ad, 4d] flop, Selbst called after Klodnicki check-raised all-in. With 8d, 7d]in the hole, the turn came 10d to complete his flush, leaving Selbst crippled. She was eliminated a couple of hands later.”

Bell

Pro Chris Bell, who won a bracelet at this year’s WSOP, is the chip leader with 434,500 in chips. Klodnicki, Victor Ramdin, Beth Shak, Sorel Mizzi, Jonathan Little and this year’s Harrah’s Resort WSOP Circuit Main Event champion, Matthew Waxman are among those who will join Bell on day three.

Fifteen players will collect their share of the $1,279,624 prize pool with the final nine earning an automatic bid into the $1 million freeroll WSOP Circuit National Championship to be held May 27-May 29, 2011 at Caesars Palace Las Vegas.

The Eastern Regional Champion will take home $358,295 and the Regional Championship gold ring.

The final table will be televised on VERSUS Network, marking the first time in three years that a WSOP Circuit Championship will appear on national television. Coverage of this and the other three Regional Championship events will air in mid-2011.

Also today, the final ring event of the circuit events gets underway at 11am. It’s a $300 + $50 No Limit event.

The Regional Championship at the Harrah’s Resort World Series of Poker Circuit events drew in a field of 136, well off the mark of 226 players that played in the first WSOP regional championship in October near Chicago.

Chip leader Selbst

So the quick question is, has the event drawn a disappointing turnout?

Realistically, it depends on how you look at it. First off, the event is a $10,000 buy-in ($9,700 + $300), which isn’t exactly chump change. Not many truly “regional” players can afford that kind of scratch.

Especially considering point two, which is that the event started Sunday, six days before Christmas. The holidays are notoriously slow for all casinos and let’s face it, people simply have other things to do.

So considering all that, you could argue that it’s actually a pretty strong field.

Still, even the WSOP admitted the turnout did not “exceed expectations.”

The 136 entrants did create a prize pool of $1,279,624 (remember, there is an extra 3 percent vig for staff). The winner will take home $358,295.

The event has drawn several big time pros including 2010 WSOP Main Event runner-up John Racener, Andy Bloch, Barry Shulman, Amnon Filippi, Chad Brown, Kathy Liebert, TJ Cloutier, Dwyte Pilgrim and David Baker.

At the end of day one, WSOP bracelet winner Vanessa Selbst (who is having a great year at the tables) had a commanding chip lead over the remaining 92 day one survivors. With 126,375 chips, the Yale Law student will begin day-two play with over 37,000 chips distancing her from her nearest opponent, Isaac Baron. Andy Frankenberger returns to an 84,850 chip stack while Kenny Hicks and Nick Mitchell round off the top five at around 80k each.

Other notables who survived day one include Sorrel Mizzi, Nick Schulman, Pilgrim, Ted Lawson, Cloutier, Filippi, Bernard Lee, and Shannon Shorr.

Play resumes today at noon.

Vanessa Selbst

Poker players of the female persuasion got a big boost in prestige this weekend as Vanessa Selbst won the Poker Stars North American Poker Tour Mohegan Sun $5,000 No Limit Hold’em main event Sunday. Selbst, of Brooklyn, takes her total tournament winnings close to $1.7 million with the $750,000 win, making her one of the most successful pros going and the first female champion of a NAPT event.

She also picked up a WSOP bracelet in 2008 for Pot Limit Omaha.

At the final table, she faced down pros such as Scott Seiver, Cliff Josephy and Jonathan Aguiar. Selbst started the day with about $4.5 million in chips, but aggressively ran it to more than $18 million before a final showdown with player Mike Beasley, who was short stacked at $2,775,000. On the final hand Beasley went all in with queen of hearts and 10 of spades. Selbst called with ace of hearts, eight of spades and won with a pair when the eight of clubs came out on the river. You can read about the action here.

Daniel Negreanu

Daniel Negreanu also made some headlines lately, but not for success. Negreanu, playing on GSN’s High Stakes Poker, was recently bluffed out of a hand by French pro David Benyamine. Both players held spade flushes, but Negreanu folded the higher flush when Benyamine made a $101,000 bet after the river. Benyamine still got paid, however, when Doyle Brunson, of all people, called with a set of queens. Go here for a rundown.