Borgata Winter Open Draws Huge Crowd

The cold is apparently no deterrent for the 1,472 players who went to America’s East Coast to attend the Borgata Winter Poker Open’s first event. Indeed, it was a rather pleasant surprise to find the $500 No Limit Hold’em Deep  Stack Tournament drawing a record-breaking crowd. Of course, with a big crowd also came a huge prize pool, which amounted to a whopping $736,000.  It was a great start for this year’s Borgata Winter Poker Open, and it only spells great things for the industry.

 

Breaking Records

The last time the Borgata Winter Open drew a crowd this big was on the year 2007, where 1,370 players showed up to create a prize pool of $685,000. This time, with 1,472 players showing up, the prize pool soared to an astonishing $736,000. The grand prize was worth $150,850, which is pretty sizeable for an opening event. The only real downside to this year’s Borgata Winter Open is that many of the country’s biggest pros have gone elsewhere, particularly to Australia’s Aussie Millions. Some did favor the Borgata Open, though, like Jason Young, Robert Varkonyi, Alex Bolontin, Steve Dannenmann, and more. However, of the 1,472 who showed up, only 120 would finish in the money. It was still great fun for everyone involved; and when the final table was formed, the action was pretty much sizzling.

 

The Final Table

There were nine people who managed to make it into the final table. Shawn James was the very first one to go, earning himself $13,207. Next was Robert Hanley at eighth place gaining $19,275. Brian Mooney was the next one to go with $25,343 worth of prize money, followed by Alex Bolontin and Ryan Wood.  Bolontin earned $31,768 for his efforts and Wood earned $29,265. At fourth place was Leonardo Palermo, who earned $47,832. Seungwan Lee was the last to be eliminated before heads up at third place. He earned himself a pretty sizeable $57,113.  Joshua Lawson and Alexander Rocha were left for heads up, but the battle didn’t really last long. In about half an hour, Rocha had managed to eliminate Lawson. Lawson walked away with $94,236. Rocha was the only one who went home with six figures, earning himself a whopping $150,850. He also brought down the title and the prestige of being 2011’s first Borgata Open Winner. I’m sure he’ll have a great weekend at the Borgata casino, or maybe he will try his luck on some microgaming blackjack sites.

Still, this tournament stop’s not over yet. The Main Event guarantees a prize pool of more than $2 million, so if this record breaking field at the first event is any indication, it’s surely going to be a pretty huge field this year as well.

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