Borgata Poker Open Championship Event Kicks Off With $5 Million Guarantee

Record breaking tournament begins events to crown a WPT Poker Open champion.

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ - The 2008 Borgata Poker Open - World Poker Tour Championship event began on Sunday, drawing a field of 516 players with the guarantee of a $5 million prize pool, the largest guarantee by a casino in poker history.

A number of poker’s elite players came out to try and become the 2008 champion, including Player-of-the-Year candidates John Phan and Eric Seidel. Big name poker pros such as David “The Dragon” Pham, Jamie Gold, Gavin Smith, Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Roy Winston, Chad Brown, Kathy Liebert, Jon Juanda, Carlos Mortenson and Nam Le all showed up to play in the Borgata Poker Open Main Event on Sunday. Also participating were Dennis Phillips, Ylon Schwartz, and Chino Rheem, all three “final nine” participants for this year’s WSOP event in November.

Professional live players were not the only group represented, as top online pros including Jarde “The WacoKidd” Hamby, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy, Eric “E-Fro” Froelich, Robert “Action Bob” Hwang, Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke and Joey “JoeytheB” Brooks took time away from their computers to shoot for the grand prize.

According to Brooks, he has been waiting for this tournament all year. “You always want to do well in the preliminary tournaments, but this is the one that really counts. This kind of first-place money can really help change your life.”

According to WPT lead reporter BJ Nemeth, Borgata’s guarantee once again sets Borgata apart from other stops on the tour. “Despite competing against major tournaments both online and in Europe, Borgata guaranteed a full $5 million prize pool with the WPT Borgata Poker Open Championship Event. That’s the largest guarantee in history, and a lot of critics didn’t think they would get nearly enough players to reach it. When registration closed for the event, the field was only five short of reaching the guarantee. In the end, Borgata added $46,400 to the prize pool and this gives players the advantage of extra equity in the tournament. It’s a win-win situation,” Nemeth said.

Although only one player can take home the title, 54 spots will make the money. Make sure to go to www.theborgata.com to keep up with all of the action on the Poker Blog as Borgata’s team of reporters bring you the action from the Event Center floor. Check out videos of all the poker action at www.borgatatv.com.