Event 1 (Day 1A)

$540+$60 Deep Stack NLH
$1.5 Million Guaranteed
Structure Sheet

Level 9: Blinds 400/800/800 BB Ante
Entries: 882

A quick stroll through the TTA (that’s Temporary Tournament Area to you noobs) reveals much multiway action.

In one interesting spot on 17 which seems standard for the BPO, the CO limped, BU called, the BB completed with , looking mischievous, then dark checked.

On the jack high board, the CO then led, only to be raised by the BU. and the BB folded, but the CO had hard time making sense of it.

When CO finally gave up, he was flashed a jack, but did not appear impressed by this card.

Meanwhile, an underrated table is 23, featuring Sunny Devore, Men Nguyen, the always active A.S, and Harry Weingord of the earlier set of deuces.

A.S., all in, first doubled with from the cut against on .

A.S. gave a little back with against . He led 2,000 into the six-way, 12,000 pot. The Master found a fold on the turn, however, after Harry Weingord value bet 5500, but A.S. kept him honest on the ace high board.

Men the Master, left, finding a fold, while Sundiata on his left, and A.S. with middle value look on at Harry’s bet in the near ground right.

Nearby, as the action closed and break began, Welther Marmol, on his birthday no less, got a turn shove through two opponents to stay alive. The first one double checked with the floor if he could still rebuy before deciding – that must have have made Welther nervous!

Marmol pulled off the hoodie after one fold, then got the second from a dissatisfied looking seat 1, who had already committed 5,000 before the shove.

On the , a lot of draws were available to Marmol, but he pulled it off. He’s healthy with 60,000.

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Below is a list of all the players playing in Day 2, in chip count order. To find an alphabetized list of these players, along with table and seat number for each player, click HERE.

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Level 18 (Blinds 3,000/6,000/500)
Total Day 1A Entries: 502
Players Remaining: 55

Dan DiZenzo, Pabhu Dyal, John Cevallos (Day 1A Chip Leaders)

After 18 levels of play and nearly 11 hours of play, 55 players have made it through Day 1A and have advanced to Day 2 of the Event 1 – $500 + $60 Big Stack NLH RE $2,000,000 Guaranteed tournament.

There are many familiar faces that bagged chips and will be back on Friday at 12 PM to begin Day 2, and players running in Day 1B/C tomorrow will all be chasing Day 1 chip leader Dan DiZenzo, who ended the day with 391,000. Behind him was a log jam of players all above the 320,000 chip mark, including Pabhu Dyal (346,000), John Cevallos (341,000), Anthony Balliette (333,000), Jack King (330,000) and Tim Stump (320,000).

Joe Reddick, Dan Wach, Ahmad Mohamed and Richard DeVivo have all bagged above the chip average, which sits at 182,000.

Players will again be flooding into the Event Center starting early tomorrow morning as Day 1B of Event 1 begins at 10 AM. There are two chances for players to advance tomorrow though, as Day 1C begins at 5 PM.

All players that bagged chips tonight are again reminded that Event 1 is NOT a best stack forward tournament, and any player who bagged chips tonight will forfeit their stack if they enter any other Day 1 field.

Event 1 may be taking a quick break (12 hours to be exact), but the action of the Borgata Poker Open will continue throughout the night as Event 2 – $350 + $50 Omaha/Stud 8B 8 Handed Rotation will play down until 18 players, or 2 AM, whichever happens last.

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Level 18 (Blinds 3,000/6,000/500)
Total Day 1A Entries: 502
Players Remaining: 65

Jerry Scotto

With two players already all-in in front of him and needing to risk more than half his stack to make the call, Jerry Scotto jumped at the opportunity for a huge score, only to find that he was way behind.

Scotto: {Jh}{Js}   Player X: {As}{8s}    Player Y: {Qh}{Qd}

Flop: {7h}{6c}{4c}
Turn: {Ks}
River: {Jd}

When the {Jd} first came out on the river, the player with pocket {Qx}’s started to celebrate the fact that he had faded the {Ax} that would have knocked him out. But he quickly realized that simply avoiding an {Ax} wasn’t enough, as Scotto made a set on the river.

One hand later – whilst still stacking his winnings – Scotto called a modest all-in pre-flop bet of a different opponent and had him beaten pretty well with {As}{7s} vs. {Ad}{6d} until the other player got a {6c} on the flop and a {6s} on the turn.

Even after that loss, Scotto still has well over 200,000 chips.

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Level 18 (Blinds 3,000/6,000/500)
Total Day 1A Entries: 502
Players Remaining: 70

Richard DeVivo (Phoenixville, PA)

When you’re Richard DeVivo, all you need to do to get a hand, is complain to whatever blogger will listen to you about how “card dead” you’ve been for the last few hours.

While most players complain until they are blue in the face and never turn it around, when you’re DeVivo, you get dealt pocket {Ax}’s and eliminate a player holding pocket {10x}’s.

Then, on the very next hand, after a little bit more complaining from DeVivo, he was dealt pocket {Qx}’s and took down the pot pre-flop.

DeVivo claims he’s had to watch Joe Reddick play “99% of the hands he’s dealt and win every single one of them”, which is why Reddick is sitting as one of the chip leaders headed towards the end of Day 1A.

DeVivo can’t be too card dead though, as he is now over the 250,000 chip mark with 20 minutes left in Day 1A.

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Level 17 (Blinds 3,000/6,000/500)
Total Day 1A Entries: 502
Players Remaining: 75

Nunzio Russo

With just one level remaining until the end of the night, the sound of a dealer calling “Seat open” is almost as constant as that of chips being shuffled at the few remaining tables. Less than 15 percent of starting players remain, and there are 40 minutes remaining for players to try to increase the number of chips they bag tonight.

The latest elimination took place on Table 7. Nunzio Russo felt good about his suited cards, telling others at the table that he knows when hearts are coming.

Nunzio: {Ah}{5h}    Player X: {10d}{10c}

Flop: {7h}{2h}{8d}
Turn: {Kc}
River: {3h}

After the flop, the other player was standing up saying, “Please don’t do it! I’m not ready to leave!” But the heart on the river gave Russo the flush.

It wasn’t a huge score for Nunzio, as the other player was one of the shortest stacks in the room, but it’s one less player for him to worry about on Day 2.

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Level 17 (Blinds 2,500/5,000/500)
Total Day 1A Entries: 502
Players Remaining: 90

John Cevallos (Bronx, NY)

The action was picked up with two of the bigger stacks in the room heads-up and all-in before the flop, both with monster holdings.

John Cevallos had the best of it at the moment, but his {Qs}{Qh} held only a slight advantage as he was racing against the {As}{Kh} of an unknown player, who had him covered.

The board ran out clean for Cevallos, {10s}{4s}{7h}{3s}{6c} and he was completing the double up and leaving his opponent with well below chip average.

Cevallos was all-in for nearly 200,000, so that pot could possibly have been the biggest pot of the tournament thus far and he is now certainly amongst the leaders heading into the final level of play for Day 1A.

Players will play 40 more minutes and then bag chips at the end of Level 18.

Players are also reminded that this is NOT a best stack forward tournament, so any chips bagged tonight will be forfeited if that player buys into any of the remaining Day 1 sessions.

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Level 17 (Blinds 2,500/5,000/500)
Total Day 1A Entries: 502
Players Remaining: 90

Alyson Parker (Plainsboro, NJ)

After scanning the field, there are only four women that remain alive at the moment, hoping to last through Level 18 and bag chips.  Here is the short list of those left along with updated chips counts:

Alyson Parker – 80,000
Christine Brewer – 60,000
Brittany Billian – 54,000
A. Nonymous – 36,000

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Level 17 (Blinds 2,500/5,000/500)
Total Day 1A Entries: 502
Players Remaining: 100

James Kaplan (Boca Raton, FL)

James Kaplan and Joe Reddick went head to head in a sizable pot over on Table 1.

Joe raised pre-flop to 11,500 sitting UTG+3. Kaplan re-raised to 26,000 from the hijack seat, which knocked everyone out of the hand except for Joe who made the call.

The flop came {9s}{8h}{7d}. Joe checked before Kaplan pushed all-in for his final 53,000 chips. Joe thought for a minute before making the call and flipping up {Kc}{7c}, revealing bottom pair. Kaplan didn’t have much of anything, needing to hit top pair with hole cards of {Ac}{4c}.

The {6c} on the turn brought an open-ended straight draw which was completed on the river with the {10h}.

Reddick and Kaplan ended up chopping the 160,000 chip pot.

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Level 17 (Blinds 2,500/5,000/500)
Total Day 1A Entries: 502
Players Remaining: 100

Pabhu Dyal

The action was picked up with Dan Wach all-in and at risk and behind the pocket pair of Pabhu Dyal.

The table all laughed when Wach said, “I have a big pocket pair.” before revealing his pocket {8x}’s, crushed by Dyal’s {Qx}’s.

When the flop came, {Ks}{Qc}{As}, Dan should have been well on his way out of the Event Center, but the turn and river brought the {10h} {Jh}, completing the broadway straight on the board and keeping Wach in the tournament.

Wach jokingly said, “I don’t run better than you guys, I play better than you guys to get that chop.” Everyone at the table laughed, except Dyal, who shook his head thinking what could have been as the pot would have made him one of the tournament chip leaders.

Dyal would smile a few moments later when realizing that he is just under an hour away from bagging chips in Day 1A and is sitting with nearly double the average stack size.

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