The third day of play in the Season XV World Poker Tour® Borgata Poker Open Championship wrapped up Wednesday night at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City with 30 players remaining from the 1,179-entry field. The player who finished atop them all was Champions Club member Matt Waxman, bagging up 2.791 million in chips.
Waxman’s ending chip stack was more than 500,000 chips clear of Simon Lam’s second-place stack of 2.268 million, and that was due to a double knockout by Waxman late in the day when he sent both Blair Hinkle and Sam Taylor packing with two jacks holding up.
Top 10 Chip Counts
1. Matthew Waxman – 2,791,000
2. Simon Lam – 2,268,000
3. Farid Jattin – 2,160,000
4. Phong Vip Nguyen – 2,000,000
5. Alex Foxen – 1,940,000
6. Aleksei Vandyshev – 1,757,000
7. Faisal Siddiqui – 1,577,000
8. Paul Volpe – 1,554,000
9. Jesse Sylvia – 1,501,000
10. Zachary Gruneberg – 1,443,000
With 159 players returning for Day 3 and only 110 reaching the money, a good chunk of them would have to go home empty handed. The eyes of our reporters were also scanning the tournament room for the “bubble boy,” who turned out to be Eric Panayiotou when he fell in 111th place.
Panayiotou was all in with pocket jacks against the pocket queens of Douglas Stewart. Stewart’s queens held up, and Panayiotou was eliminated.
After Panayiotou’s bust, the in-the-money eliminations began to pile up.Andjelko Andrejevic went out in 109th place, Eugene Todd busted in 99th place, Vinny Pahuja was eliminated in 73rd place, Will Givens was bounced in 52d place, Eli Elezra made his way to the payout desk in 38th place, and Ari Engel, who began the day as the second biggest stack in the field, was gone in 31st place.
With each of the remaining 30 players guaranteed a payday of $14,719, notables Farid Jattin (2.16 million), Paul Volpe (1.554 million), Aaron Overton (1.058 million), John Racener (1.052 million), and Mike Vela (461,000) still remain.
Day 4 will begin at 12 p.m. local time and action is scheduled to continue until the televised WPT final table is reached. For continued coverage of the Season XV WPT Borgata Poker Open Championship, stay tuned right here to WPT.com.