live and direct from The Borgata Winter Open

Yesterday, I got my feet wet covering the H.O.S.E event which was final tabled by Captain Tom and Chris Reslock. Mark Roland won $68,992 for besting the 122 player field.

I got to bed about 4:30am this morning and relied on room service to bring breakfast on time for my wake up call. They were about 20mins late so i had about 15 mins to eat, shower, get dressed and bolt to the tournament room.

I snapped a couple of pics for the site

Sucko


Pvan Haribo / LJ


Beth Shak


Mario Ho


Eric "Rizen" Lynch


There are over 400 players playing Day 1a of the 3k / $2m Guaranteed Borgata Winter Open Championship. Some other big names playing Day 1a are Jason Young, Bill Edler, Allen Kessler, Matt Mattros, Lee Childs, Al Krux, Brett Yungblutt and Robert Varkonyi.

Lastly, I'm extremely impressed with the Borgata. Their hotel/casino is easily as nice as some of the best casinos in Las Vegas and the reason i got to sleep so late is the cash tables were very juicy. To give you an idea, some guy called off all his chips with J-J on a K-high flop. I bought in for $200 and cashed out $1050 after only 4hrs. I hit a few hands and got paid off every time.

Follow our coverage at 2009 The Borgata Winter Open.

Update (3pm ET): we just moved to level 4 (100/200). LJ is just below her starting stack of 50k with 47k. Lucko is sitting with 57k. The only notable bustout to this point has been Paul Snead. I missed the hand but apparently no clock was called.

Update (4:45pm ET): The players just came back from a 10 min break and are starting level 5 (150/300/25 ante). Lucko is chipping up nicely with 64k and LJ has 48k. Rizen has taken a big hit and has 16075 chips. But with this structure, there's no need to panic. Hopefully, he can get some chips back before the dinner break. Maria Ho busted out right before the last break on a sick cooler. She got it all in with QQ on a K-Q-T flop and ran into another player's KK.

Update (5:15pm ET): Lucko21 just took down a big pot pf without a showdown. Some guy raises to 900 from EP, player in MP flat calls and Lucko bumps it to 3100 from the button. EP guy calls and the guy in MP reraises to 16000. Lucko shoves his stack in the middle and both players fold with the guy in MP mucking 3-3 face up (wtf !??). Lucko now has around 90k.

Update (8:30pm ET): We just returned from dinner break and start level 7 (300/600/75 ante). Lucko lost some chips during the last couple of rounds but is still sitting comfortably with 70000. LJ has around 40k and Rizen was able to get a double up during the last level before the break has 38k. They're playing two more levels and calling it a night. There are 358 players remaining of the 439 that started Day 1a.

Update (9:05pm ET): Lucko runs so good. He just took out a shorty with AK vs JJ for a 50k pot all-in preflop. He now has around 90k.