Event 8
Event 8 – ‘Super Stack Elevator’
Level 13: Blinds 1,000/2,000/300 ante – 40 Minutes
Total Entries: 274
Players Remaining: 179
Average Stack: 61,000
Jon Borenstein (Teaneck, NJ) & Kevin Campbell (Bayonne, NJ)
It’s all sunshine and rainbows over on table 9 where Jon Borenstein and Kevin Campbell are clowning around. Kevin has managed to build himself a nice stack in the early floors of this elevator’s rise. His 40,000 starting stack is now closer to 200,000.
Kevin has come close to the winner’s circle here at Borgata in the past, including two 4th place finishes in Six Max events during 2015, one of which was his largest single cash — $18,430.
Jon Borenstein might be eyeing Kevin’s chips in a covetous way. He final-tabled the $2M GTD opening event, appearing on the live stream yesterday and eventually finishing 6th for $86,589.
Event 8 – ‘Super Stack Elevator’
Level 12: Blinds 800/1,600/200 ante – 35 Minutes
Total Entries: 274
Players Remaining: 179
Average Stack: 61,000
Steve Buckner (Coral Springs, FL)
Steve Buckner is rarely seen without is trademark cigar, but he’s playing today without it. Perhaps that’s why it is so quiet at his table.
In a recent hand, Steve shoved for 26,200 from the button after a limp from the cutoff. Once the blinds and the cutoff folded, Steve showed them pocket 4s as he collected the dead-money pot.
Steve cashed in the $2 Million GTD opener of this series, so is looking to make his second score in this event. Perhaps the absence of the ever-present cigar is his attempt to improve on his 341st place finish.
Event 8 – ‘Super Stack Elevator’
Level 11: Blinds 600/1,200/200 ante – 35 Minutes
Total Entries: 273
Registration has closed for this event with 273 entrants (unofficial) as players get back on the elevator for 35 minutes now.
Once the numbers have been crunched, We’ll get the prize pool posted for you.
A couple of players in the field have checked in via Twitter:
Playing the “Elevator” tourney @BorgataPoker cuz we hate $$$. Hoping to meet @catehall & @JBStein1978 at the Penthouse FT L8r 2day.
— HMan (@CullenHMan) January 25, 2016
Elevator time @BorgataPoker let’s go
— sofcknsick (@frothy77) January 25, 2016
Event 8 – ‘Super Stack Elevator’
Level 8 (300/600/75) – 25 Minutes
Total Entries: 218
We’re jumping away from the Event 7 ‘Omaha/Stud H/L’ final table to bring you another Event 8 ‘Super Stack Elevator’ update. This field just came back from it’s first break of the day and there are now three levels remaining in the late registration period. Late registrants might not find the easiest table assignments though, as Table 24 just formed with a who’s who of solid tournament grinders.
Jake Schwartz is still looking for his first WPO score of the series and when he does, he’s going to hope that that result can push him over the $1,000,000 mark in terms of career earnings. Schwartz is near the top of the WPT POY rankings, thanks to his back to back final table runs to end 2015. He’ll be a player to watch in the WPT WPO Championship this weekend and in some of the bigger pre-lim events over the next few days.
Kevin Calenzo has one BPO title to his name but his most recent win came towards the end of last year at Foxwoods. Calenzo won the 1,175 player opening World Poker Finals event for a $72,000 score, which would have been the biggest result of his career, had he not one a massive WSOPC Main Event in 2012. That win came in Las Vegas and was good for just shy of $200,000. Since then, he’s added another WSOPC ring to his name and he’ll hope to do the same with BPO titles this week.
While Kunal Patel has a BPO title to his name, his best result came in 2014, when Patel finished 7th in the WPT WPO Championship. That result was good for a $135,000 score and since then, he’s added over $500,000 to his career earnings. He’s already opened his WPO account with a slightly better than min-cash in Event 1 and he’ll hope to build on that result over the rest of the series.
We’ve hit our quota of Asher Conniff features for the first week of the Winter Poker Open series but the BorgataPoker.com pro is there as well, along with Matthew Wantman, who won a title at last year’s WPO series. Throw in Scott Blumstein, who has been endlessly complaining about a “fair draw” and this table might be one of the more stacked that we’ve seen so far today.
Event 8 – ‘Super Stack Elevator’
Level 3 (75/150) – 15 Minutes
Total Entries: 109
This ‘Super Stack Elevator’ crowd will likely grow significantly over the next few levels, as many players will bypass the early 10-20 minute levels and wait to get in the action around Level 8. That is when levels jump to 30 minutes in length but until then, these early arriving players will hope to benefit from their promptness and add to their solid 2015 resumes with a deep run to kick off 2016.
Norm Michalek already opened his 2016 account in the Event 2 ‘Black Chip Bounty’, where he finished 28th on Saturday. After a day off from live play, Michalek is back and trying to regain his WPO form from last year, where he finished 12th in the ‘Borgata Million’ and 15th in the WPT WPO Championship, good for a combined $45,000 in winnings.
Michael McGuinness is trying to open his 2016 account and if this year is anything like last, he’s going to have to make more room on his trophy case. McGuinness won three Borgata Poker titles in 2015, including a ‘$100,000 GTD Mini Series’ win in October for nearly $40,000. Those results have pushed him closer to the $200,000 career earnings mark, a number he’ll look to clear before the end of the WPO.
There weren’t multiple wins for Sundiata DeVore last year but there were multiple deep runs. The New Yorker made six major tournament final table runs and claimed the MAPC Championship title in October, good fro a $40,000 score. He finished 2nd, 6th, 7th and 10th in Borgata based events, meaning he’s likely one good run from finally breaking through for his first career BPO title.
Event 8 – ‘Super Stack Elevator’
Level 1 (25/50) – 10 Minutes
While iLoveMakkonnen thinks that clubs should only go up “on a Tuesday“, the Event 8 ‘Super Stack Elevator’ is going up on the first Monday of the Winter Poker Open series. While this event doesn’t boast a guarantee, it’s been one of the bigger tournaments since making it’s BPO debut in July.
This event will follow the same structure as it did in past series, with players starting with 40,000 in chips and playing levels with increasing time. Those levels will increase by five minutes every two levels, starting at 10 minutes and topping out at 75 minutes at the final table. Late registration and unlimited re-entry is available through the first 10 levels of play, with players who buy-in then still working sizable 40 big blind stacks.
With a sizable but affordable $560 buy-in, the non-guarantee on this event shouldn’t really matter, as the field should create a good prize pool and Event 8 should offer some great value. The WPO blog will be providing updates from that event but the early focus of the blog will be the Event 7 final table restart.
The first week of the Winter Poker Open is already suddenly behind us and even though the weekend numbers were slightly lower than usual, thanks to a snow storm that covered the East Coast, the first week was massive in every way. It opened with the 5,100 player $2,000,000 GTD Event 1 and those sizable fields should continue into this week.
The always huge ‘Borgata Million’ starts tomorrow and while today will be slightly slower than the next few days of starting flights, there is another WPO trophy up for grabs and two events playing their Day 1 sessions today. The first will start at 11 AM, as the ‘Super Stack Elevator’ returns for another series. The Event 7 ‘Omaha/Stud H/L’ comes back with a final table of nine at 12 PM and they will play down to a champion today.
Event 9 ‘Pot Limit Omaha High’ starts at 4 PM and both that and the ‘Super Stack Elevator’ will be playing until around 3 AM, with trophies being awarded sometime tomorrow. A complete preview of each of those events will be posted before they begin and a recap of the first week of the WPO series will be posted this morning.