Event 1
Daniel Weinman (Washington, DC)
2017 WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open Champion
Over the previous 18 days, the Borgata played host to another record-setting Winter Poker Open Series, culminating in the World Poker Tour BWPO Championship event. That $3 Million Guaranteed event fielded 1,312 runners, setting a new record for the largest-ever WPO Championship event. It was also just one entrant shy of matching the record for most entrants in any Borgata Open series Championship, which was set in 2011. During that year’s September Borgata Poker Open, 1,313 entrants took to the felt. This year’s record for Borgata also places fourth on the World Poker Tour’s all-time most-entries list.
Georgia-born Daniel Weinman took the title and his first WPT win at a final table was live-streamed by the World Poker Tour. First-place prize money was more than $892,000.
The series also started of with a record-breaking Kickoff Event. The $2 Million Guaranteed Deep Stack opener drew 5,512 entrants, handily beating the previous year’s record-setting field of 5,101 runners. Aristoteles Neto claimed more than $216,000 for the win.
The series boasted a total of $6.4 million in guarantees and all were covered easily. Nearly $10.5 million was paid in total buy-ins just for the 25 Main Events, not including satellites and secondary events. (* Next to 1st place indicates Adjusted Payouts.)
Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to all the participants. We hope to see you back at Borgata for the next series, the Spring Poker Open, coming up April 18th through May 5th.
Although there were some technical issues with the blog during this series, we want to thank all the players, friends, and family for their patience as they were sorted out. Our servers have been upgraded so should be able to handle the next record-breaking event at Borgata! Until next time, farewell from the Borgata Blog team of Kaelaine, Matt Clark, Tim Kelliher, and Chris Murray!
With the completion of the Deeper Stack NLH event in the wee hours of this morning, the decks have been cleared, completing the first week of the 2017 Winter Poker Open. Several records were broken this week including the largest ever single field, which was in the Deep Stack Kickoff event. Six starting flights generated 5,512 entrants, beating last year’s attendance by more than 400 entries.
Aristoteles Neto is the official winner, but the final seven players agreed on Adjusted Payouts that resulted in them all cashing out for six figures. The massive opener was followed by another large field in the Black Chip Bounty event. There were 749 entrants, beating the previous year by more than 100. Stephen Gerber took more than $40,000 and 1st place in a three-way deal, wrapping the event after 5am on Day 2.
The first Saturday Series event of the WPO also ended in a three-way deal shortly before 7am. Gordon Eng earned his second lifetime Borgata Open trophy and $50,000, topping the massive 778 entrant field. The event’s $100,000 guarantee was beat by more than $170,000!
Matt Emmel started off strong in his attempt to defend his Heads Up title from last year, but washed out one round short of the money. In the end it was Eric Schwartz, who won the 2016 BPO Event Center/Online Heads-Up tournament last September who repeated as champion, beating two-time Borgata Open titleist Zhaoxing Wang in the finals and collecting more than $24,000 along with his second Borgata trophy.
On Sunday, the Seniors turned out a 173 entrants, another field that was larger than in 2016. James Kinney came out on top of a seven-way Adjusted Payout, earning $8,100 and the hefty Borgata Hotel replica trophy.
The Deeper Stack NLH event was running alongside the Seniors on Sunday. It’s $25,000 guarantee turned out a field of 313, more than doubling the guarantee. The large field took until 4am to find a winner, which was Victor Paulino, in a heads-up deal with David Jackson. Victor claimed more than $14,000 and his first Borgata trophy.
There were also two Survivors on the Main Event schedule this week which saw 265 and 184 entrants. Combined, those two events paid out more than 182,000 to the final 10% of their fields.
That wraps up the first eight events and the first week of the series. The second week fires up with the Deepest Stack $150,000 Guaranteed event, which has two starting flights today. Another record field is expected to kick off the second week of the Winter Poker Open. That will be followed by the hugely popular Almighty Stack, which carries a $500,000 guarantee. It has three starting flights running Tuesday & Wednesday, with the final two days on Thursday and Friday.
The Super Stack Elevator, Pot Limit Omaha H/L, HORSE, Six Max, and another Super Survivor will round out the second week, taking us to another very busy Saturday at the end of the week. Stay tuned to the Winter Poker Open blog for all the action and follow @BorgataPoker on Twitter for the latest updates.
Event 1 – $2,000,000 GTD
Level 37 (250,000/500,000/50,000)
Total Event 1 Entries: 5,512
Players Remaining: 1
Chip Average: 137,800,000
Winter Poker Open Event 1 Champion – Aristoteles Neto
5,512 entrants registered for the opening event of the Winter Poker Open creating a prize pool of over $2,600,000. 914 of those hopefuls returned for Day 2 with only 29 emerging for Day 3. Aristoteles Neto started the day as the chip leader and more or less stayed near the top of the leaderboard for most of today.
Once play reached the verge of the final table, Neto chipped up to his Day 3 peak and came into the final table as the chip leader. By staying out of harm’s way, Neto kept his lead long enough to emerge as the overall winner in the adjusted payout. This win marks Neto’s first in a major event along with his first career Borgata Poker Open victory.
Although Neto will go down in the annals as the overall champion, all seven players who finished among the deal are winners as they have earned six-figure scores. After witnessing a record-breaking field to kickoff the Winter Poker Open, this bodes quite well for the rest of the series with nearly two dozen events still left to be played out.
Event 1 – $2,000,000 GTD
Level 37 (250,000/500,000/50,000)
Total Event 1 Entries: 5,512
Players Remaining: 7
Chip Average: 19,700,000
Winter Poker Open Event 1 Winners From Left: Moe Farah, Aristoteles Neto, Ralph Macri, Marlon Pagharion, Juan Nieto Rodriguez, Robert Nguyen, Ilya Dyment
Shortly after the elimination of Larry O’Halloran, the remaining players soon started to talk about a potential deal. After counting down the respective stacks for the remaining players, the players looked at numbers and found common ground following a 30-minute negotiation.
Aristoteles Neto will take the trophy by virtue of having the largest stack and will also take the largest portion of the deal, earning $216,155
The other players will finish relatively even as they will all earn between $205,048 and $153,832. Finishing second and third respectively are Robert Nguyen and Ralph Macri, with Nguyen taking home $205,048 and Macri earning $204,773.
For all players, this marks their largest career score for outwitting, outlasting and outplaying 5,512 entrants to reach the final table. A look at the full-adjusted payouts is below. A winner’s recap will be posted shortly.
- Aristoteles Neto – $216,155
- Robert Nguyen – $205,048
- Ralph Macri – $204,773
- Ilya Dyment – $180,000
- Marlon Pagharion – $171,946
- Moe Farah – $171,244
- Juan Neito Rodriguez – $153,832
Event 1 – $2,000,000 GTD
Level 37 (250,000/500,000/50,000)
Total Event 1 Entries: 5,512
Players Remaining: 7
Chip Average: 19,700,000
Larry O’Halloran (Colonia, NJ)
With the elimination of Lisa Costello, Larry O’Halloran and Juan Neito Rodriguez were the two stacks in danger of going out next by a wide margin. Rather than have someone do the job for him, Rodriguez did the deed himself to earn himself the pot and give the table an extra $20,000.
O’Halloran shoved for 6,000,000 from early position and got a call from Rodriguez out of the small blind, who had O’Halloran covered by about 2,000,000. Rodriguez was ahead with K♣J♣ but O’Halloran was very live with Q♠10♠.
The 8♥8♠4♥ flop gave O’Halloran backdoor outs to a straight and flush along with his two live cards. Despite his available outs, the K♣ on the turn locked up the hand for Rodriguez.
Counting the blinds and antes, Rodriguez nearly doubles to 13,500,000 making Moe Farah the new short stack with 11,300,000.
Event 1 – $2,000,000 GTD
Level 36 (200,000/400,000/50,000)
Total Event 1 Entries: 5,512
Players Remaining: 8
Chip Average: 17,225,000
Lisa Costello (Las Vegas, NV)
Lisa Costello folded down from her final table starting stack to under 2,000,000 but managed to get a pay jump via the elimination of Frank Pasquale.
Costello obviously needed a double with no other short stacks likely to bust before her. Robert Nguyen opened to 1,500,000 from under the gun and Costello moved all-in for 1,775,000 from a few seats over. Action folded to Marlon Pagharion, who stuck in a raise to 5,200,000.
Nguyen shook his head and didn’t look pleased to fold but did and Costello was officially at risk with 4♠4♣ against the A♠A♣ of Pagharion. A dry Q♠2♣2♠6♣J♠ runout had Costello heading to hug her cheering rail.
Costello will take home $30,583 for her run and Pagharion is back up to 15,000,000. Larry O’Halloran is the new short stack with 6,500,000 with Juan Neito Rodriguez only a few hundred thousand ahead of him.
Event 1 – $2,000,000 GTD
Level 35 (200,000/400,000/50,000)
Total Event 1 Entries: 5,512
Players Remaining: 9
Chip Average: 15,300,000
Frank Pasquale (Deer Park, NY)
The start of the final table was a relatively slow to start with so much money on the line with each bustout. Frank Pasquale started the final table barely above 10 big blinds and never found the double he so badly needed.
Right before the level went up, Pasquale met his end with Ilya Dyment raking in the last 3,000,000 of Pasquale’s stack. Dyment opened for 800,000 from the hijack and Pasquale piled for roughly 2,200,000 more from the small blind.
Dyment called with A♦8♠ and Pasquale needed to catch up A♥6♣. The K♠9♥4♥ flop put chop outs in play for Pasquale but Dyment paired up on the 8♣ turn to send Pasquale out.
After starting the day 26th out of 29 players, Pasquale grinded his way through the day and will earn a $20,585 cash for his run. Dyment is up to 12,800,000, putting him squarely in the middle of the pack.
$500+$60 Deep Stack NLH
$2 Million Guaranteed
Level 37: Blinds 250,000/500,000/50,000 ante
Total Entries: 5,512
Players Remaining: 9
Average Stack: 15.3 million
Chip counts for the final nine, in millions:
1. Ilya Dyment – 12.8
2. Lisa Costello – 1.9
3. Aristoteles Neto – 24.7
4. Larry O’Halloran – 7.25
5. Ralph Macri – 24.7
6. Marlon Pagharion – 12.75
7. Moe Farah – 14.7
8. Robert Nguyen – 22.85
9. Juan Nieto Rodriguez – 7.5
Event 1 – $2,000,000 GTD
Level 35 (200,000/400,000/50,000)
Total Event 1 Entries: 5,512
Players Remaining: 10
Chip Average: 11,500,000
Greg Weber (Linden, NJ)
Greg Weber started two table play over 10,000,000 and lost nearly every small pot after that to be reduced down to 10 big blinds. In a spell of relative bad luck, Weber ran into the kings of Mo Farah to be cut down shy of the final table.
Weber open-jammed for 4,025,000 out of the small blind with 10♣7♣ and Farah looked at his cards and flicked in calling chips. The Q♠Q♦5♠ flop left Weber effectively dead and he pulled on his backpack as a blank hit the turn.
Farah scooped the pot and is playing 15,200,000 with the final table set to get underway in a few minutes. Once the redraw is posted, it will be available on the Winter Poker Open blog.
$500+$60 Deep Stack NLH
$2 Million Guaranteed
Level 35: Blinds 200,000/400,000/40,000 ante
Total Entries: 5,512
Players Remaining: 11
Average Stack: 12.5 million
Jason Ritchie (New York, NY)
Jason Ritchie got all-in under-the-gun for his last ~3.5 million and after some thought, got a call from Marlon Pagharion in the big blind. Jason’s suited QJ would need help against Marlon’s KT offsuit. The board failed to deliver, however, as it ran out K 7 3 J K.
Jason finished in 12th place, earning $20,585. Marlon chipped up to about 14 million.
After Greg Weber busted out in 11th place on the other table and before they managed to redraw for the final table, Larry O’Halloran got all-in utg for 4.89 million and again Marlon called, this time from the small blind.
Larry’s AK offsuit was in good shape against Marlon’s KJ offsuit and the board of K 8 5 A 7 confirmed Larry’s double-up to ~10 million, dropping Marlon’s stack back to roughly 9 million.
They’re moving to the final table now.