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The Borgata Winter Poker Open (BWPO) landed at the Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa in Atlantic City on January 14 with a packed schedule of twenty-five featured events that promise to keep the venue busy till January 31. The series has already crowned nineteen winners, and the most prominent of them, Zarko Mandic (Event #1 $600 Deepstack Kick-Off $2 Million GTD) and Kareem Marshall (Event #13: $400 Almighty Stack $1 Million GTD) won $342,967 and $195,903 respectively.
The showstopper event at the stop, the $3,500 Championship Event, has logged in a field of 1,065 entries (Day 1A – 382, and Day 1B – 683) already. Day 2 is scheduled to start later today with Francis Anderson at the helm of the 595 hopefuls (Day 1A – 199, and Day 1B – 396) with a stack of 300,100.
Complete List of Winners (so far)
Event | Winner | Prize |
---|---|---|
#1 Deepstack Kick-Off | Zarko Mandic | $342,967 |
#2 Super Survivor | Patrick Ibrahim | $4,000 |
#3 Black Chip Bounty Deepstack | Timothy Rutherford | $86,118 |
#4 Saturday Series DeepStack | Men Nguyen | $50,000 |
#5 H.O.S.E. | Roland Israelashvili | $5,392 |
#6 Super Survivor | Derek Staib | $5,000 |
#7 Seniors NLHE | Faisal Siddiqui | $10,500 |
#8 Deeper Stack | Frank Simone | $18,121 |
#9 PLO High | Todd Rodenborn | $6,927 |
#10 Deepest Stack | Ryan Tamanini | $64,032 |
#11 Super Survivor | Shehryar Samson | $5,000 |
#12 OE H/L 8B | Federico Ottenion | $6,400 |
#13 Almighty Stack | Kareem Marshall | $195,903 |
#14 Six Max NLHE | William Givens | $91,017 |
#15 Super Survivor | Emily Larson | $5,000 |
#16 Saturday Series DeepStack | Sennon Peter | $39,422 |
#17 Heads Up NLHE 64-Max | Qi Hu | $67,512 |
#18 8-Max Purple Chip Semi Turbo | Alberto Sabogali | $46,929 |
#19 Charity Tournament | Katie Stone | $3,500 WPT Seat |
#21 Deepest Stack | Peter Zarrielo | $13,420 |
#22 Highroller | Jonathan Dokler | $100,829 |
#23 Deepest Stack | Jean Gaspard | $47,042 |
#24 Black Chip Bounty | Vladimir Vasilyev | $13,560 |
Zarko Mandic took down Event #1: $600 Deepstack Kick-Off $2 Million GTD after three days of action-packed tournament play. The opening event sold 4,375 entry slips (Day 1A – 405, Day 1B – 558, Day 1C – 475, Day 1D – 1,522, and Day 1E – 1,415) across five starting flights. After deciding upon an adjusted payout deal heads-up with Ricardo Eyzaguirre, Mandic walked away with $342,967 as first-place prize money, along with a Borgata trophy. Eyzaguirre was awarded $290,000 for his runner-up finish.
The Manhattan, New York resident Mandic started playing poker just a year ago and had run up $15,000 in live cashes before this victory.
Elaborating on his poker career, Mandic said, “I started playing about a year ago, but back in college, I played a different type of poker (Five-Card Draw) which was basically bluffing, you could play it without looking at the cards.”
He started the final table with just over two million in chips but quickly ran it up to fourteen million by deploying the aggressive style he used to play in college. Talking about his final table run, he later said with a laugh: “I was going up and down on the final table then bluffed their brains out. I bluffed the chip leader and then the Canadian in seat ten (Constantinos Psallidas) so I went from six to fourteen million.”
“I just played aggressively, played all-in and that’s why he (Ricardo Eyzaguirre) was getting angry at me,” Mandic said with a smile.
As for his immediate plans, “I am going to rest up and will be here next week for the main,” he added.
Final Table Results (USD)
After locking in a six-way deal, Kareem Marshal was the last player standing in Event #13: $400 Almighty Stack, and he took home $124,488 in prize money along with the Borgata trophy.
This win marked Marshall’s second-biggest live tournament score. His best score to date continues to be his runner-up finish at the WPT500 in 2014 for $180,000. This victory pushed Marshall’s live tournament earnings to over $500,000.
The event witnessed a 3,363 strong-field (Day1A – 718, Day1B – 445, Day1C – 1,140, and Day1D – 1,060) courtesy of the four starting flights and the top 300 places were assured at least $787 in prize money.
After the eliminations of Ryan Tamanini, Dennis Gainer, Chad Tardif in ninth, eighth, and seventh place respectively, the remaining six players namely Kareem Marshall, Ray Medlin Sr, Luis Trujillo, Luis Rodriguez, Daniel Tu, and John Long agreed to a deal. They revised the payouts and decided that the top four stacks will get to flip for the trophy. As it turned out, Marshall flopped a pair of eights on the flip to clinch the trophy to go along with the $124,488 cash prize he got from the deal.
Final Table Results (USD)
The headline event at the stop, the $3,500 Championship, has logged in a massive field of 1065 runners (Day1A – 382, and Day1B – 683) so far. Day 2 is scheduled to start later today with late registrations open till the end of level 10.
Francis Anderson, who bagged the end of Day 1B chip lead with a stack of 300,100, headlines the 595 runners (Day1A – 199, and Day1B – 396).
Day 1A brought in 382 entries, and after eight one-hour levels of play, only 199 among them were left standing. The most massive stack at the end of Day 1A belonged to Leonard “LJ” Sande, who bagged an impressive 245,700 in chips. Close on his trail was WPT Champions Club Member Tony Dunst (224,900), Renata Colache (216,000), Jeremy Joseph (195,600), and Steven Sarmiento (179,100) to round out the top five stacks of Day1A.
Day 1B of the Championship Event saw 683 entries, and when the dust had settled, only 396 found a bag. Sitting atop the counts was Francis Anderson with a stack of 300,100 – good enough to get him in the overall lead heading into Day 2. Craig Varnell found the second-largest stack on Day 1B after bagging 240,600, putting him third on the overall counts headed into Day 2. Kenneth O’Donnell (224,400), Giuseppe Iadisernia (223,100), and Taylor von Kriegenbergh (219,400) rounded out the top five stacks at the end of play on Day 1B.
Top 10 Chip Counts at the Start of Day 2
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Content & Images Courtesy: PokerNews and The Borgata