The 2016 Borgata Winter Poker Open is just one week away and the excitement is mounting! The series is starting about a week later than in previous years and many players are chomping at the bit to hit the felt. This series is going to be a monster with $6.7 million in guarantees! The WPO series will take place in Borgata’s Event Center as usual, but this year ALL events will play out in the Event Center, rather than relocating to the Poker Room for the last few days.
Online registration is still available for all 22 Main Events. In addition, online qualifiers are currently running on BorgataPoker.com and they will continue through the end of January. Click here for more details.
On-site registration will be open Monday, January 18 from noon to midnight in the Borgata Poker Room. Starting Tuesday, January 19, on-site registration will move to the Event Center lobby and will be open daily from 8am to 12 midnight throughout the series.
During the Winter Poker Open, FOUR events will have live-streamed final tables:
Event 1: $500 + $60 Deep Stack NLH, $2 Million GTD; Final Table: Sunday, January 24, 12pm
Event 10: $400 + $50 Deep Stack NLH, $1 Million GTD; Final Table: Saturday, January 30, 4pm
Event 14: $2,000 + $150 Heads Up NLH; Final Rounds: Saturday, January 31, 12pm
Event 17: $3,300 + $200 Borgata / WPT Championship NLH; Final Table: Friday, February 5, 12pm
Tournament Director Tab Duchateau has already released the names of the commentators for the $2 Million GTD Event 1 final table. Michael Gagliano (@Gags30Poker), Tyler Patterson (@TylerPoker), and Joe Stapelton (@Stapes) will be handling the play-by-play and all three have lots of experience sharing their excellent poker insights from the booth. Anyone interested in providing commentary for the other finales should contact @TabDuchateau.
In addition to the events previously mentioned, there are 18 additional trophy events, including two $100,000 GTD Saturday Series events, two Pot Limit Omaha events, an Omaha/Stud High/Low event, both Ladies and Seniors events, a $1,000 buy-in Six Max NLH event with a $200,000 Guarantee, and a $1,000 buy-in Turbo NLH event. Both the Super Stack Elevator and 40 Big Blinds tournaments, which joined the Borgata Open series lineup in 2015, will take place during the Winter Open.
For the first time ever, this series will feature a Charity Series of Poker (CSOP) tournament as a trophy event (Event 16). The fund-raising tournament takes place Saturday, January 30, at 5pm. For more details on the charity and it’s mission, check out www.charityseriesofpoker.org.
Click here for the full main event schedule.
Live qualifiers kick off Tuesday, January 19th and run through the start of the Championship event. Click here for the schedule of live qualifiers and secondary cash events. Satellites, Survivors, and Bounty events will be running in the evenings alongside the main events with buy-ins ranging from $100+$20 up to $700+$50, giving players plenty of opportunities to get in the action.
All the information you need for this series can be reached online at WinterPokerOpen.TheBorgata.com. Live coverage of the 22 main events will appear here at WinterPokerOpen.Blog.TheBorgata.com, so bookmark this site for future reference. The Borgata blog team consisting of Will O’Connor (@WOCPoker), Steve Horton (@TropicalSteve), and myself (@Kaelaine), with cameo appearances by Matthew Clark (@mattclark345), will be bringing you all the action from the first “Shuffle Up and Deal!” to the final river card over this 18-day series.
Last year, Aaron Mermelstein came out on top of a field of 989 entrants in the WPO Championship event, taking home $712,305. Who will claim top honors this year? Stay tuned to the Winter Poker Open blog for all the news as we make our way through what should be a record-setting series!