Sunday, September 14, 2008

Day 1 of the WPT Borgata Poker Open Main Event


The economy is lagging, gas is on the rise again (although it never got low) and people are scrounging to find their last dollars. But don’t tell anyone at the Borgata about the economy’s downward swing.

The Borgata has had a great turnout for its Borgata Poker Open and 516 people registered for the main event, which is a World Poker Tour event that started today. The multi-table tournament costs $10,000 to enter, unless you are lucky enough to get in through a satellite.

However, plenty put up the cool 10K themselves, including plenty of notables that casual poker fans would recognize.

John Juanda was in the house. As were Joe Sebok (Barry Greenstein’s son), Mark Seif, Michael Mizrachi, Nicky Frangos and Beth Shak, who my boyfriend is sad he didn’t see her. These were some of the more popular players, although there were many local pros.

Flyers forward Scotty Upshall is playing in the tournament. According to the Borgata poker blog, Upshall doubled up and should at least make it to Day 2 of the tournament. The Flyers have been practicing in the early morning getting ready for camp, which starts on Saturday. Upshall is probably taking a small break before Philadelphia makes a run to get back to the Eastern Division Finals.

Today was the first day of the U.S. Poker Championships over at the Taj Mahal, which is just a quick ride from the marina. It started with a $300+$40 limit event and will continue through Oct. 8. Its main event ($10,000K) is from Oct. 5-8.

It will be interesting to see how well the Taj draws or if the people are just flocking to the Borgata.
Update: Here's Card Player's Julio Rodriguez's account of Day 1 of the WPT event.

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