Home / Poker News September 2011 / WPT Borgata Poker Open – Day 1A Report
WPT Borgata Poker Open – Day 1A Report
Posted by: James Carter. - Tue, 2011-09-20 06:03
One of the most popular stops of the WPT’s 10th season, the Borgata Poker Open kicked off the other day, with its first day 1 flight attracting an impressive starting field of 460 players. 8 levels of play were squeezed into Day 1A, at the end of which, 245 players had chips bagged to return to action on day 2. Abe Korotki was the one who finished the day with the biggest stack. The interesting thing about Korotki’s Day 1a performance was that he picked up a special $5k reward from the WPT just for finishing the day in the lead. With that, his tournament earnings have swollen to more than $700k. He won a
NL Holdem event at the Borgata Summer Open in 2006. A few months before that, he had also won the
WSOP-C’s Harrah’s Atlantic City Stop, for a prize of $433k.
There was a whole throng of ‘name’ players in action on Day 1A, among them Dwyte Pilgrim, Dan Shak, Eugene Todd, Andy Frankenberger and Ali Eslami. Dwyte Pilgrim’s presence was an especially meaningful one, given the fact that he won the previous edition of the event.
Darren Elias put an end to his title defense dreams though, during level 7. Pilgrim will still get a chance to mount a title defense: he will be allowed to re-buy on the second day 1 flight.
The money went all-in on a turn of 8,5,3,4 after Elis check-raised all-in. Pilgrim made the call, holding pocket 9s. Elias has A,2 though for the wheel, and Pilgrim was pretty much drawing dead. Indeed, the river failed to be of any help to him and he was eliminated.
Allen Bari, Brent Hanks and Dan O’Brien hit the rail as well, and like Pligrim, they’re all expected to re-buy on Day 1B.
Vanessa Selbst played extremely well, and so did Will Failla. Christian Harder, Cornel Cimpan and Kenny Nguyen all managed to advance as well.
