Poker at the Borgata Winter Open Day 1

You know the saying, “its poker”, most use it to describe a good hand being beat by a good hand. At the start of this year’s Borgata Winter Open it seemed that this phrase would in up being warn out.

This year, 507 players will be competing for the title and a first prize pay out of $1,401,109. The top 54 are the only ones getting paid though so there will be a lot of poker being played to get to that spot.

It was early, before the first level was even over when Nick Schulman was sent to the rail with “its poker” and probably a few more words running through his head. Schulman was dealt pocket fives and flopped quads. With a board of Ks 5s 5d 4s 2s Schulman got all his money in the middle and was called by Stephen Freda.

Schulman had to think that the pot he built and now was almost totally invested in was all his but Freda had other plans. As Schulman turned over his quads, Freda turned over As 3s for the 1,000 to 1 shot runner-runner straight flush. Though not totally out, it wasn’t long before Nick Schulman was sent to the rail before his seat was even warm.

Stephen Freda wasn’t done with just that strange hand though. In another Freda ended up on the short end with David Williams. David double up through Stephan when he flipped over a 10-8 on a Tc 8c 7s 8h 4c board and Stephan flipped up 8-7. This put William’s in good shape though and eventually added more chips to end to the day with 89,600.

This tournament starts each player out with a deep stack and with a slower blind structure should provide a slow paced tournament but with a smattering of 30 or so aggressive online poker players and some aggressive professionals, there were some that managed to accumulate a lot of chips in day 1.

Of course some were not as lucky and like Nick Schulman, went home in Day 1. Among them were John D’Agostino, T.J. Cloutier, Tom Dwan, Barry Greenstein, Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren, Jonathan Little and Gavin Smith.

Leader Board 2008 Borgata Winter Open:

1. Lenny Cortellino 213,000 chips
2. John Phan 182,825 chips
3. Joe Sebok 149,700 chips
4. Justin Bonomo 148,675 chips
5. Vanessa Rousso 148,350 chips

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