The 2017 World Poker Tour Borgata Winter Poker Open has achieved the largest field in its history as 192 additional entries were made on Day 2 to bring the total to 1,312. That number makes this tournament the fourth-largest in World Poker Tour history, as well. There are now just 168 players remaining heading into Wednesday’s Day 3 with Jack Duong leading the charge holding 727,500 chips.
The total prize pool for the Main Event is $4,199,712, eclipsing the guarantee by over a million bucks. 130 players will be paid – so the money bubble should burst today – with the winner receiving $892,433.
The chip leader, Jack Duong, has an interesting live tournament resume. He has a ton of cashes dating back five years, but most are small, only in the four-figure range (what I wouldn’t give to win over a thousand dollars in a poker tournament). Overall, though, he has earned more than $1.5 million in live tourneys. That total is thanks largely to four six-digit cashes, the best of which was his lone World Series of Poker bracelet win, coming in the 2015 $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Bounty event, where he earned $333,351. His best World Poker Tour cash came just last year, a $175,122 score for a fifth place finish in the WPT Choctaw Main Event.
Duong told WPT.com at the end of the night that his trek to the top of the leader board was partially because he played well and partially because he had a nice run of cards. Sounds like the formula for most tournament success. He actually entered Day 2 with just 27,000 chips, which was below the tournament’s starting stack, so growing that to over 700,000 is quite the single-day achievement.
He said that his key hand came very close to the end of the night, when he got into a pre-flop raising war holding pocket Kings when his opponent had Ace-Jack. Naturally (or we wouldn’t be talking about it), the Kings won out and Duong scooped a 400,000 chip pot.
Another hand I found entertaining isn’t really all that significant in the grand scheme of the tournament other than the fact that it culminated in the elimination of a strong player. It is one of those hands where the loser just has to shrug and think, “I never stood a chance.” For some reason, I chuckled reading about it.
Jeffrey Chang raised pre-flop, David Paredes three-bet to 29,000, Chang raised one again, putting for Paredes all-in for around 90,000 and Paredes made the call. Paredes had pocket Fours – not bad if you have to make a bold move – but Chang had pocket Kings. Ok, pretty standard pair over pair situation, but it got much worse. The flop brought a third King, reducing Paredes’ chances to runner-runner Fours or, as the suits were laid out, runner-runner hearts to hit a flush. The runner-runner hopes were dashed on the turn and then Chang hit quad Kings on the river for good measure. Like I said, it was just one of those hands.
Day 3 begins at noon ET.
2017 World Poker Tour Borgata Winter Poker Open – Day 2 Chip Leaders
Jack Duong – 727,500
Bart Dowling – 687,500
Mike Del Vecchio – 573,000
Nicholas Immekus – 552,500
Thomas Brinley – 549,500
Eugene Fouksman – 544,000
Olivier Busquet – 540,500
Tony Tran – 535,500
Ivan Fazal Karim – 533,500
James Dorrance – 522,500
