2011 Borgata Winter Poker Open Day 3: In the Money and Down to 37 with Abramov Leading
Day 3 of the Borgata Winter Poker Open ended on Wednesday night in Atlantic City with 37 players remaining. Leading the charge into Day 4 will be Or Abramov, who finished with 1.687 million in chips. “I played good today and hope to continue to do the same tomorrow,” Abramov said to the Borgata Winter Poker Open blog.
With 167 players returning to action on Wednesday, that meant a good number of them would be forced out the door empty-handed as only 72 places paid. When the bubble burst, an interesting scenario arose.
With hand-for-hand play occurring, Bob Courtney was all-in for 78,500. He held Ax3x and was up against the QxQx for Greg Marcus. Courtney couldn’t overtake the queens and was eliminated thinking he was the bubble boy. On one of the other tables in action, Tim Latouch was all-in for 78,000 holding KxQx. He was up against the two jacks for LJ Sande. The board ran out Ax9x5x5x6x to eliminate Latouch. According to tournament rules at Borgata, because Latouch had 500 fewer chips than Courtney, he was the bubble boy instead, and Courtney was officially eliminated in 72nd place for $6,665. The issue has sparked some debate in the tournament thread over on Two Plus Two.
As is the case in most tournaments, after the money bubble broke, players began dropping quickly. One who hit the rail was PokerNews pro blogger Josh Brikis. Luck wasn’t on Brikis’ side this time around as his A♣K♦ went down to an opponent’s A♦Q♥. How’d it happen? The board ran out 8♥5♥2♥6♥10♣ to give Brikis’ opponent a heart flush. Brikis took home a min-cash for his efforts.
Sitting behind chip leader Abramov in the counts is none other than Roz Quarto. She entered Day 3 as the chip leader and was able to gradually build her stack before finishing up with 1.426 million.
World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner and World Poker Tour champion Gavin Smith also bagged a healthy number of chips to end the day. One big hand that helped Smith boost his stack came up against Steven Tabb. With the average stack at a bit over 500,000, Smith made a flush with the 6♥5♥ against Tabb’s pocket jacks to send him to the rail. That put Smith close to one million in chips and from there he finished out the day with 973,000 in chips.
A few of the other notables to make the cut include WSOP bracelet winner Jeff Papola (603,000), Richard Lyndaker (565,000), Jack Schanbacher (470,000), Charlie Hook (190,000) and Craig Bergeron (181,000).
All of the remaining players have locked up at least $9,653. They will be returning to action at 11:00 a.m. EST on Thursday to play down to a final table. The Championship Event concludes on Friday, February 4. Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for daily recaps of the event.
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