Day 2 of the Season XV WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open $3,500 Championship comes to an end with 168 players remaining from a record-breaking field of 1,312 entries, and Jack Duong (pictured) leads the pack with 727,500 (146 big blinds).
“I came in with under the starting stack — 27,000,” Duong said. “But I got a good run of cards, and I felt like I played really well.”
Duong catapulted to the top of the leaderboard in the final minutes in what was a great scenario for him, as he held a premium pocket pair and was able to get all the money in preflop against a worse hand.
“One of the last hands before bagging up, I got into a five-bet pot preflop,” Duong said. “I had kings, and he had ace-jack.”
The pocket kings held up for Duong, and he won a pot worth about 400,000 to take the lead.
The full list of official chip counts and seating assignments won’t be released by the casino until Wednesday morning, but here is an unofficial leaderboard for the end of Day 2:
1. Jack Duong – 727,500 (146 bb)
2. Bart Dowling – 687,500 (138 bb)
3. Mike Del Vecchio – 573,000 (115 bb)
4. Nicholas Immekus – 552,500 (111 bb)
5. Thomas Brinley – 549,500 (110 bb)
6. Eugene Fouksman – 544,000 (109 bb)
7. Olivier Busquet – 540,500 (108 bb)
8. Tony Tran – 535,500 (107 bb)
9. Ivan Fazal Karim – 533,500 (107 bb)
10. James Dorrance – 522,500 (105 bb)
WPT Champions Club member Olivier Busquet finishes the day with 540,500 in chips and joins the top of the leaderboard, looking to score another big WPT victory at Borgata. Busquet won the Season VIII WPT Borgata Poker Open Championship in 2009 and $925,514, and he could become one of the very few players to win two WPT titles at the same casino.
There was a surge of 192 entries on Day 2 to increase the field size to 1,312 — a record for the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open Championship, and the fourth-largest field in World Poker Tour history. The total prize pool is worth $4,199,712, and first place is worth a whopping $892,433.
The final 130 players will finish in the money and receive at least $6,678 each. Here is the full list of payouts, and we expect to burst the money bubble during the second or third level on Wednesday.
Day 3 begins Wednesday at 12 p.m. ET. Return to WPT.com for continued coverage of the Season XV WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open Championship.