Level 7 (250/500/50)
Total Day 1A Entries: 132
The Borgata Poker Player’s Series Day 1A field is now on their post-Level 6 break, which will be the last break before the late registration period closes on this “double play” structured event.
While most events see a sharp spike in entries during this break, this BPPS 500 should not as players who busted out through the course of the first six levels are now locked out until tomorrow’s Day 1B session.
A slight change to the structure has been made as a quick 30 minute dinner break has been added and will land after Level 8, giving players a chance to get a “real” break as opposed to the 10 minute varieties that we’ve seen thus far today.
When play resumes we will update you on the finalized Day 1A flight size and continue to bring you player updates from the field.
Level 6 (200/400/50)
Total Day 1A Entries: 130
The first live qualifier for the Borgata Poker Player’s Series 500 was yesterday and saw six players win their seats into today’s Day 1A flight and there is another opportunity for players to win their way to this championship event today.
A $120 + $30 qualifier will be starting at 4 PM in the Poker Room and will send 1 in 5 players to tomorrows Day 1B flight, giving players a chance to play for what is looking like a close to $200,000 prize pool, for a fraction of the entry fee.
While the live updates will not be following that qualifier, there are already close to ten tables set up awaiting the rush of players, meaning we could see a big afternoon crowd with 20% of the field winning their way into tomorrow’s action.
As it stands, there are just over 15 minutes remaining in Level 6 and the registration cage will be closed when play resumes after the next break.
Level 6 (200/400/50)
Total Day 1A Entries: 130
Trevor Deeter (Philadelphia, PA)
While the poker community tends to be a tight nit one, there are regional “cliques” that travel to circuit stops together and before the last break, Trevor Deeter and the rest of his “Parx crew” arrived to take their seats here in the Borgata Poker Player’s Series 500.
The “crew” for this weekend is made up of Deeter and poker professionals Rocco Luciano and Amanda Musumeci and we expect to see a few more of their continent during tomorrow’s Day 1B flight and through the rest of the BPPS series.
While Luciano and Musumeci haven’t faired so well today, as Luciano folded what would have been the winner in a massive pot a short while ago and Musumeci was just eliminated after getting crippled when her {Qd}{Qc} couldn’t hold against the {10s}{10c} of a short stacked player, Deeter will be looking to carry the torch through this Day 1A flight and build off some recent Final Table appearances.
The start of 2015 has been good to Trevor, as he’s coming off back-to-back Final Table runs at the Parx Big Stax 10 series where he finished 6th in the Big Stax 300 and the WSOP Circuit Baltimore stop where he finished 8th in the $1,675 Main Event, earning close to $40,000 through those two results.
Those two results dwarf in comparison to his total career earnings which are over the $450,000 mark and while Deeter has an impressive tournament resume with multiple major victories to his name, he’s still searching for that “breakthrough” score as he’s never cashed for more than $50,000.
That’s bad news for the rest of this BPPS 500 field, as Deeter consistently puts himself in positions to make the money and enters today’s event looking to continue the run that’s seen him play some of the best poker of his career early in 2015.
Level 5 (150/300/25)
Total Day 1A Entries: 127
Throughout the last hour even more Borgata regulars have taken their seats here in the BPPS 500 leading us to another “Faces In The Crowd” post as we feature three players that boast some of the more impressive resumes in today’s field as we are about to move into Level 6.
While last year was Dan Dizenzo’s best as a tournament professional, notching a six figure score at the WSOP and a podium finish during the BPO Borgata Million, he hasn’t slowed down in 2015, opening his calendar with a 2nd place finish in the Parx Big Stax 1500 earning just over $75,000.
While Joe McKeehen hasn’t notched a Borgata score since back-to-back BPO Heads Up Championship runs to end 2014, don’t let that fool you as he has one of the best tournament resumes in this field with close to $2,000,000 in career tournament earnings.
If there was one player to challenge the impressive resume of McKeehen, it’s Vinny Pahuja, who is a former Foxwoods and Borgata Poker Champion with close to $1,800,000 in career earnings with some of his biggest scores coming in “championship” structured events.
Level 5 (150/300/25)
Total Day 1A Entries: 127
Michael McGuinness (Toms River, NJ)
While we are still a few levels away from bringing you a complete list of chip leaders and notable stacks in this Day 1A flight of the Borgata Poker Player’s Series 500, one player has vaulted himself up towards the top of the leaderboard mid-way through Level 5.
The action as picked up pre-flop on an outer table with Michael McGuinness five-bet shoving all-in for just over 44,000 after multiple players were involved in a pre-flop leveling war.
Eventually it was an unknown player calling, as he already had 12,000 chips committed to the pot and the two players would be flipping as McGuinness tabled {10c}{10s} and would need to fade the {Ah}{Kh} of the unknown player.
He would as the board would run out Jack high and although the unknown player wasn’t crippled by the loss as he started the hand with close to 60,000 chips, he’d be left well below half the chip average with McGuinness going in the opposite direction, currently playing close to 100,000 when it was all said and done.
After the hand had ended, Rocco Luciano claimed he folded “two black Jacks” and the aggression and strength showed pre-flop forced Rocco to fold what was evidently the best hand from start to finish.
He’ll try to put that fold behind him, while McGuinness looks like the early leader here in the BPPS 500, a spot that he’s been in before as he was more or less the wire-to-wire chip leader during October’s Deep Stacks Challenge opening event, where McGuinness claimed his first ever Borgata Poker title.
Level 4 (100/200/25)
Total Day 1A Entries: 122
During our last walk through the tournament area we were asked close to a dozen times, “What time are we ending today?”
So, we’ve ran the numbers and come up with an estimated end time for both Day 1A and 1B’s starting flights to be around 9 PM tonight.
That takes into consideration five ten minute breaks, so with some breaks lasting 15 minutes for color ups, we are giving ourselves fifteen minutes on either side of that 9 PM cut off just to be safe.
As for the late registration period that should end around 4 PM, after the Level 6 break, leaving close to two hours for players to get into the Borgata Poker Player’s Series 500 action.
As it stands, players are just 15 minutes from the end of Level 4 and their next break, after which the updates on tournament size and player features will continue.
Level 4 (100/200/25)
Total Day 1A Entries: 120
With so many “notable” players and regular Borgata tournament grinders in the field, it would be impossible to feature all of them throughout this Day 1A session, so, without further ado we bring you the first “Faces In The Crowd” post of the day, where we will highlight groups of players throughout the day.
Matt Itkin (Oceanside, NY) is a lawyer by trade, but he burst onto the tournament scene last year, cashing 18 times in 2014 while earning just under $90,000 playing part-time.
Joe “Black” Reddick (Bronx, NY) is a stone cold professional with a tournament resume that boasts scores from nearly every series on the circuit, including a 3rd place finish in the opening event of the West Palm Beach WSOP Circuit stop where he earned the biggest cash of his career, a $75,000 score for his podium finish.
Steven Sarmiento (Forest Hills, NY) won his first Borgata Poker title during last year’s Fall Poker Open when he won the Heads Up Championship, moving himself dangerously close to the $150,000 mark in terms of career earnings.
Level 4 (100/200/25)
Total Day 1A Entries: 120
We’ve just moved into Level 4 of the Borgata Poker Player’s Series 500 meaning that we are now halfway through the late registration period as the cage will close after the completion of Level 6.
We’ve seen the number of registrations slow over the last level, but with just over an hour and a half remaining in the late registration period, that number should continue to grow over the next three levels.
It’s also been interesting to see players battle with a “double play” structure strategy as a few players that bought in early in the day are now sitting extremely short and are now forced to try to spin up a stack instead of busting and re-entering like most would in a “regularly” structured tournament.
If those players are unable to turn their stacks around, they’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s Day 1B flight for their chance to make Day 2, as each player is limited to only one entry per starting flight.
Over the next few levels we will continue to update you on the overall tournament size and notable players in the field.
Level 3 (100/200)
Total Day 1A Entries: 115
Tony Diorio (Staten Island, NY)
Before the Borgata Poker Player’s Series was put on the tournament schedule last month, the only major event outside the seasonal Borgata Poker Opens for grinders was the Deep Stacks Challenge.
The DSC is a week long tournament series with deep stack structures that has become one of the more successful series in the region, consistently boasting huge fields and massive prize pools despite having smaller buy-ins.
We’ve seen numerous players, since the first series held last May, make their first big Borgata tournament score in the DSC and then parlay that to even greater success in other major series and Tony Diorio (Staten Island, NY) will be trying to do just that here in the BPPS.
Diorio burst onto the tournament scene last month, making back-to-back Final Table appearances during the February DSC, notching 3rd and 4th place finishes in two of the biggest events of the series earning a combined $12,000 for his finishes.
While he notched two massive scores through that series, poker players are always looking up the payout lists and Diorio knows how close he was to some bigger payouts and Borgata Poker glory as he’ll be looking to continue his good run and perhaps even earn his first ever tournament title here in this weekend’s BPPS 500.
Level 3 (100/200)
Total Day 1A Entries: 111
The players have just returned from their first break of the day and will restart play with Level 3 and the tournament field over the 100 player mark.
With close to three hours remaining in the late registration period, that number should continue to grow over the next few levels and it will be interesting to see where this Day 1A field ends up as it will give everyone an idea about just how big this Borgata Poker Player’s Series 500 will get.
As a reminder, this BPPS event does not allow re-entries as this “double play” structure only allows one bullet per starting flight, allowing two entries over two days of play.
Despite allowing no re-entries, we expect to see this Day 1A field grow near the 200 player mark today and will continue to post updates on the field size throughout the early levels.
