Photo: Chipleader Joey Couden
After two starting flights, the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open already has a massive field of 1,204 entries, which is on pace to break the WPT Borgata record of 1,313, set at the Season X WPT Borgata Poker Open.
Registration remains open overnight and during the first two levels of Day 2, closing around 2:15 pm. The prizepool is already worth more than $3.8 million, and it should easily cross the $4 million mark early tomorrow. The payouts won’t be released until after registration closes.
The chipleader here on Day 1B is Joey Couden, who made a televised WPT Final Table last season, finishing fourth at the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown to earn $251,523. Couden already has more than $2 million in live tournament earnings, with more than $323,000 of it coming from WPT events.
Asked about his big stack at the end of the day, Couden said, “I feel like I did my job today. I had a lot of big hands. I had kings like six or seven times. I made probably a dozen flushes.” As for Day 2, “I’m just going to try and take what comes to me.”
This field will be playing down here at Borgata over the next three days to the final six players, and then the televised final table will be held in Las Vegas on March 13th at HyperX Esports Arena at Luxor.
When asked about potentially making the final table and playing in HyperX Esports Arena, Couden said, “That seems like it would be pretty cool. I’ve never been there, but it seems like a cool situation.”
Other notables that bagged big stacks on Day 1B include Ness Reilly (194,500), Eric Siegel (193,000), Joe McKeehen (126,800), Curt Kohlberg (119,000), and WPT Champions Club member Bobby Oboodi (142,200), who won the WPT Borgata Poker Open in Season X with the record-setting field of 1,313 that might be surpassed tomorrow.
WPT Gardens final tablists Steve Sung and Ray Qartomy both bagged up chips today, with Sung arriving late and finishing with 62,800, while Qartomy will need to double-up-or-rebuy early on Day 2 as he’s starting with just 5,500. Regardless of how they finish here at Borgata, both of them will play their televised final table at HyperX Esports Arena on March 12th.
There are currently 665 players who survived the first two days, though that number will increase as more people register before Day 2 begins tomorrow (Tuesday) at 12:00 noon EST. Return to WPT.com for continuing coverage of the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open.
Photography by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive.com
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