[user253757]
Robert "Uncle Krunk" Panitch Here on Day 1A
With a nickname like "Uncle Krunk" one might expect Robert Panitch to be a young gun on the poker scene, but in fact, Panitch is a 62-year old grizzled vet on the tournament scene.
Panitch is in the house here today, competing on Day 1A of today's opening event at the Borgata Winter Poker Open. So far, "Uncle Krunk" has lived up to his nickname, and he has hung tough against players 40 years his junior.
Currently, Panitch sits with a comfortable stack of around 42,000, good for double what he started the day with.
A flop of produced heavy action in a recent hand at one of the outer tables. After one check, the player in the hijack bet 8,000, and Wen Zhang bumped it to 16,000 from the cutoff. The original checker called off his remaining 13,700, and the bettor called as well. The turn brought a , and two checks. A river completed a possible straight, and again both players checked.
The all-in player showed for a missed flush draw, but the cutoff had only for king high. Zhang turned over for the best unpaired hand of the three, and he dragged a surprising pot for such a modest hand.
Blinds just went up to 500-1,000 with an ante of 100.
After making two deep runs at last year's World Series of Poker (25th place in Event # 54, and 47th place in the Little One for One Drop event), young grinder Aaron Mermelstein recognized the PokerNews reporters wandering the room.
Having reacquainted himself, Mermelstein returned his focus to the game at hand, but unfortunately his seat is now empty as he has been eliminated.
We sat down for a few short questions with Tab Duchateau, who is the tournament director for the Borgata Winter Poker Open.
On his role and how the series has evolved:
"I've had the pleasure of running this tournament for the past 10 years. It has been really great to watch the series evolve and grow as Borgata Poker has grown. Now we have introduced the online qualifiers and we're qualifying people every day downstairs."
On adjusting to larger fields:
"Last year we had two starting days (Day 1A and Day 1B). This year, to better accommodate the large turnout we added a third entry day (Day 1C). We didn't have any issues. Our staff has done an excellent job of ensuring that everyone who wanted to play was able to and we are confident that everyone who wants to play tomorrow will have that opportunity."
On what brings players to Borgata:
"The Event Center is a great place to play. The players know there are going to be big fields with immense value in these fields. The structure coupled with all of the great non-gaming amenities (hotel, nightlife, dining, spa, etc) create the perfect poker experience."
Continuing the recent trend of massive all-in coolers, we just witnessed what has to be the biggest stack in the room claimed by a boisterous Mark Cincotta.
Holding , Cincotta put it all on the line against three other players. Lo and behold, the fishhooks were the best hand, as Cincotta's opponents revealed , and .
The flop of provided a number of sweats, as the player holding found the mother of all draws with straight and flush possibilities. The man holding needed one of Cincotta's jacks to fill his gutshot straight draw, while big slick was left lacking and looking for big cards.
The turn () and river () bricked off, leaving Cincotta with a massive pot to stack, and quite possibly the chip lead midway through Day 1A.
Just a few minutes remain until the second break of the day, and we've taken note of another hefty stack. Peter Bibby has separated his orange T1,000 chips into four different stacks, a luxury few have. He's well north of the 100,000 mark.
We found Nick Guagenti firing 3,175 into a sizable pot with the board reading . His lone opponent, who had checked out of the small blind, made the call. The river was the , and the small blind checked once more. Guagenti tossed in a messy bet of 7,775.
"It would be a light call if I called you," the small blind said as he leaned back in his seat. Finally, he tossed in a single green T25 chip to indicate a call.
Guagenti immediately turned over for a turned full house. His opponent mucked, and Guagenti scooped up the large pot.
[user253757]
The MyStack App Allows Players to Update Their Chip Counts in Real Time
After a recent announcement to inform the field about the MyStack app, several players have taken to Twitter to declare their appreciation for the chip updating tool. Here are just a couple of the tweets issued from the Borgata today mentioning how players are using MyStack to personally update their chip counts in real time:
![[user253757]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
produced heavy action in a recent hand at one of the outer tables. After one check, the player in the hijack bet 8,000, and Wen Zhang bumped it to 16,000 from the cutoff. The original checker called off his remaining 13,700, and the bettor called as well. The turn brought a 
, and two checks. A 
river completed a possible straight, and again both players checked.
for a missed flush draw, but the cutoff had only 
for king high. Zhang turned over 
for the best unpaired hand of the three, and he dragged a surprising pot for such a modest hand.
, Cincotta put it all on the line against three other players. Lo and behold, the fishhooks were the best hand, as Cincotta's opponents revealed 
and 
.
provided a number of sweats, as the player holding 
) and river (
. His lone opponent, who had checked out of the small blind, made the call. The river was the 
, and the small blind checked once more. Guagenti tossed in a messy bet of 7,775.
