With the weekend nearly upon us, the final event of this Borgata Spring Poker Open will be underway in just under 30 minutes, with the $230 Deep Stack No-Limit Hold'em Reentry tournament expected to attract a packed house.
All of the events on the series schedule have been hits, drawing huge turnouts, and providing the perfect platform for the Borgata to showcase the East Coast's premier poker operation.
Event 17 is scheduled to be a one-day tournament, with late registration and reentries available through Level 6 today.
Plenty of big name pros and local heroes have been in attendance thus far at the series, so we expect to see many familiar faces take their shot at a score here today.
Keep it right here to follow all of the action, as PokerNews proudly provides coverage live from the floor of the Borgata Spring Poker Open.
The PokerNews MyStack App is available for players here in the 2014 Borgata Spring Poker Open, allowing players to directly update their chip count on the PokerNews Live Reporting page for their friends and family to see.
You can download the app for iPhone or Android now to get started. Then, create a new PokerNews account or update your current one to start updating your status immediately. Your followers can see all the live action that you're involved in.
Be forewarned, however, any abuse of the app will result in account suspension or termination.
We've made a sweep of the Borgata Poker Room with the WPT World Championship on break, and like usual, a few faces stood out among the crowd. Check out who came to play today, and where they stand at the moment.
Papa Levy is always the loudest player in the table, and while his signature shout of "Send it to Papa!" has been ringing through the room during most of the Borgata Spring Poker Open, a recent exchange between him and another player was more heated.
We passed by the table to catch the tail end of a brutal suckout, as Levy got his last 16,000 into the middle with just on the flop. His opponent had the goods with , but in a flash the cowboys were cracked on the turn. The river was the and Levy notched the double with a truly bad beat.
As he collected the pot though, Levy didn't let loose with "Send it to Papa!" as he has so many times before. Instead, he picked a fight with a player in the next seat over. Levy claimed the man was not giving him enough room at the table, despite the player sitting quite close to the dealer's chair in the one seat, obviously trying to accommodate the brash and boisterous Levy seated to his direct left. An exchange of insults and bravado began to brew, with neither man refusing to back down from their position.
Eventually, the floor staff and security guards were called to quell the commotion, with Levy gabbing on to nobody in particular, while the man he hectored simply retreated to the safety of his headphones.
But enough about all that. The final six have been set, but here in Event 17 there are still six tables ringed with players trying to reach their own final table, and while that one won't be televised, PokerNews is on the scene to tell the stories and the score.
Keep it here throughout the night as we provide hand recaps, chip counts, and a full rundown of the sights and sounds as the Borgata Spring Poker Open finishes up its last event.
Thanks to the diligent and dedicated work of floor person Amy Wong, we have finally obtained a piece of paper listing payouts for a poker tournament being played for U.S. currency.
After a 271 entries were recorded through six levels of play, a prize pool of $52,574 was generated and 27 players will make the money. Here's what they're playing for here today:
A scan of every face in the tournament has revealed few familiar to us (other than Mikhail Mironenko and Mike Sandler).
With the poker world's elite players moving on to the next stop on their never ending journey, that is to be expected, but typically a local hero or two who frequent the Borgata between seasonal series will make a deep run.
Tonight that is not the case, so its time to tap shoulders and take names. Stay tuned to see if anybody you play home games with is secretly a shark.
Phil Hellmuth is not here, but his doppelganger just went broke
After being loudly directed by a man dubbing himself "Phil Hellmeth Jr." (his pronunciation, and yes, we know the real "Poker Brat" is actually a junior himself), we headed over to see what all the fuss was about.
Apparently, the "Long Island" boy (his white hair suggested boy was another unfortunate misnomer), we discovered a sight to behold: a player bragging up their one big blind stack.
Mr. Hellmeth loudly proclaimed himself to be the "Short Stack Ninja," telling us (and the entire room really) that he was "gonna win this tournament," while folding from the small blind.
During this exchange a collection was being taken to pay the eventual bubble boy, meaning whoever finished in 28th place would still take home a small profit (Bread+Butter here he comes).
True to his word, poker's newest legend in his own mind managed to grind back from just 2,000 to make the money, but his seat is now empty, meaning the bubble has officially burst. The remaining 24 runners are guaranteed to pocket $473 at the very least, but each of them has their eyes on the real prize waiting up top, with $14,723 waiting for the eventual winner.
After losing a chunk of change to Ken Daneyko a few hands earlier, Mike Sandler made his stand out of the big blind, raising it up after Dana Drazner limped in to complete the small.
Drazner then set Sander all in holding and he called off with and needed help to keep his hopes for two final tables in this series alive, but an ace flopped to kill that dream.
![[user253757]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
on the 
flop. His opponent had the goods with 
, but in a flash the cowboys were cracked on the 
turn. The river was the 
and Levy notched the double with a truly bad beat.
tabled before the flop, and another opponent with 
new his soon to be ravaged chip castle.
and he called off with 
and needed help to keep his hopes for two final tables in this series alive, but an ace flopped to kill that dream.
