Barry Leventhal and Mike Dentale are both Borgata regulars and both celebrated their birthdays yesterday. Unfortunately, not by winning any tournaments. They're both in Flight A of the Championship event today, so perhaps they'll experience some belated birthday run-good here today.
Will Givens battled Anthony Zinno heads up yesterday for a couple of hours before he emerged victorious at the final table of Event #14: $1,090 SixMax NLH. The win was good for more than $91,000 and is Givens' second title from Borgata (the first came back in 2014).
He's all smiles today as he sits in the Championship Flight A, which has just three more levels to play before the bag and tag.
Javier Zarco has joined Flight A of the WPT BWPO Championship, all the way from Spain. His $2.5+ million in tournament earnings put him eighth on Spain's all time money list.
His biggest score of $791,690 came for a second place finish in the 2015 WSOP Millionaire Maker event, which had a massive field of 7,275 entrants.
A pre-flop raising war just broke out in one of the first hands back from break. The end result was She Lok Wong moving all in for 31,100 and the player in the big blind calling.
She Lok Wong:
Opponent:
The board ran out and Wong's pocket rockets held up to earn him the double up.
David Pham raised to 1,600 from middle position and three players called. They saw a flop of and the action checked around.
The turn was the and Gruneberg led out with a bet of 2,600. Paredes called and the completed the board. Gruneberg fired out a bet of 3,800 and Paredes raised to 11,000.
Gruneberg went deep into the tank before eventually folding and Paredes took the pot.
The first flight of the WPT Borgata Poker Open $3,500 Championship saw a total of 382 entry slips sold and when the last chance saloon had closed for business 199 remained. The biggest stack to emerge from Day 1a was Leonard "LJ" Sande who bagged an impressive 245,700.
Sande took off shortly after the last break of the day and jumped to the top of the counts, a spot he locked up by night's end. Sande is a well-known grinder from West Haven, CT, who has amassed over a million in live tournament cashes with his latest coming just two weeks ago in the first event of the series, finishing sixth for $83,644. Watch for Sande on Day 2 to make another deep run and continue his hot start to 2020.
A familiar face is close behind the leader as WPT Champions Club Member Tony Dunst bagged a healthy 224,900 after eight levels. Dunst built his stack early in the day and will be a sure contender on Day 2 with his impressive resume that includes almost $4 million in career earnings. Rounding out the top five are Renata Colache (216,000), Jeremy Joseph (195,600), and Steven Sarmiento (179,100).
Day 1a saw many notables walk through the Borgata doors and not all could find a bag but some who did are John Lytle (171,000), Curt Kohlberg (170,900), Will Givens (165,400), Ory Hen (156,200), Ben Keeline (151,800), Shaun Deeb (128,900), Darren Elias (127,900), Jake Schwartz (127,100), Anthony Zinno (118,900), Galen Hall (94,500), Brian Yoon (73,500), and BorgataPoker.com Sponsored Pro Katie Stone (23,700).
The Day 1b flight will begin tomorrow at 11 a.m. local time on Monday, January 27. A total of eight 60-minute levels will be played before players bag up for the night. Players may register or re-enter until the beginning of level 11 on Day 2 and there is no limit to the number of times one player enters. Players may bag more than one stack but the smaller stack will be forfeited at the beginning of the second day.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be here to provide you with all of the updates, so stay tuned as all of the action unfolds.