Event #1: $600 Deepstack Kick-Off
Day 1b Started
Event #1: $600 Deepstack Kick-Off
Day 1b Started
Day 2 of the 2020 Borgata Winter Poker Open here at the luxurious Borgata in Atlantic City kicks off at 11 a.m. local time with the second starting flight of the $600 Deep Stack Kick-Off in the Event Center. Day 1b will be a repeat of Day 1a which took place yesterday, albeit with more entries expected as the first starting flight attracted 405 entries.
Out of those 405 entries, 65 players have already made it through to Day 2. Emanuele "Manny" Gugliuzza is currently leading them with 419,000 in his Day 2 bag. Other notable stacks belong to players like Reggie Jones (326,000), Charlie Marchese, Mike Volpe (263,000), and Michael Marder[/b] with 246,000 in chips.
With a whopping $2,000,000 guaranteed prize pool, many more entries are expected to fly in over these next few starting days. The 2019 edition attracted 5,130 entries to easily surpass the guarantee with Pascal Zaklama walking away with $328,695 and the trophy to score his biggest live cash ever.
Late registration and re-entry are available until the start of level 13 (about 5:45 p.m.). All players will start with a full 25,000 stack. They will play fifteen 30-minute levels today, the remaining players will then bag up their chips for the night (about 7:30 p.m.).
Another starting flight, Day 1c will start at 5 p.m. with two more taking place on Thursday, January 16. The survivors of all five starting flights will combine on Friday, January 17, at 11 a.m for Day 2 to battle it out for their spot on the final day.
Level: 1
Blinds: 100/100
Ante: 0
Found a couple of familiar faces seated next to each other, and not some that we see all the time.
Julian Miranda has a growing family at home that takes priority over poker, so he only pops in occasionally. He's still managed to run up more than $28,000 in reported tournament earnings.
On his left is Vivian Leslie, who has more than $53,000 in tournament earnings. Just last November, she made a deep run in the Borgata Fall Poker Open Championship, finishing 46th (out of 511 entries) for $4,957.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Julian Miranda |
25,000
25,000
|
25,000 |
Vivian Leslie |
25,000
25,000
|
25,000 |
Level: 2
Blinds: 100/100
Ante: 100
Adam Gerber has turned up in the field today and he's one we don't see very often. He runs his family's business and also coaches his kids little league team, which keeps him quite busy. He's got to spend time with the kids before they're all grown up, then he'll "have plenty of time to play poker".
He’s got more than $1 million in tournament earnings, and that’s considerable for an amateur player. Most of his earnings came from the 2007 US Poker Championships Championship event, which he won for more than $606,000. The final table in that event was star-studded with the likes of Svetlana Gromenkova, Victor Ramdin, and the late Gavin Smith, but Gerber came out on top.
Just a few weeks prior to that win, Gerber finished second in the 2007 Borgata Poker Open $5,000 NLH event, collecting more than $248,000.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Adam Gerber | 25,000 |
Level: 3
Blinds: 100/200
Ante: 200
Sal Busacca has accumulated more than $328,000 in tournament earnings and given that his best live cash was $23,000, it's taken a lot of individual cashes to come to that.
That $23,000 score was for his first place finish in the 2017 Borgata Spring Poker Open $1,060 Second Chance Semi-Turbo NLH event, which he chopped heads-up. That's still his only win here at Borgata, but with 120 lifetime reported cashes, he's always a threat to go deep.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Sal Busacca |
22,000
22,000
|
22,000 |
Level: 4
Blinds: 200/300
Ante: 300
Another travelling player only seen for the big events is Sara Stohler, who has turned up in Flight B.
Stohler is quite accomplished, with 97 reported tournament cashes totaling more than $470,000. She has wins from Connecticut to California, but only about a dozen small cashes here at Borgata.
She'll be one of the ones to watch during this event and later on in the series to see if she can put together a deep run and book a big score.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Sara Stohler |
25,000
25,000
|
25,000 |