The World Poker Tour has shifted its focus to the east coast of the United States this week as the 2016 WPT Borgata Poker Open Main Event got underway on Sunday. The tournament will span the rest of this week; the second of two starting flights is today and the final table will be held on Friday. A total of 297 players entered Sunday’s Day 1A in Atlantic City and of the 152 survivors, Farid Jattin has the most chips with 206,200, making him the only player to finish above the 200,000 chip mark.
Farid Jattin is not a household name by any means, but he has been quite successful in live tournaments recently, climbing to 74th in the Global Poker Index. The highlight of this year is probably a fifth place finish in the WPT L.A. Poker Classic back in February, good for $238,070. Clearly, he knows how to make a run in a World Poker Tour event. Jattin has $1,857,770 in total live earnings, according to TheHendonMob.com and ranks as Colombia’s top money winner (I have a friend that would be very relieved to know I didn’t spell Colombia with a “u”).
At this stage of the tournament, there are rarely any pots that are truly enormous, but late in the day, Jattin did take down one pot that was a healthy portion of the average chip stack, giving him the boost he needed to hit the top spot on the leader board. According to the WPT.com report, during Level 8 (300/600/75 ante), Jattin raised pre-flop to 1,575 chips, David Jackson called, another player re-raised to 5,075, and Jattin called while Jackson folded. Now, the flop wasn’t completely reported by WPT.com, but it was either 7-2-2 or 7-2-A. Based on what followed, we’re guessing it was 7-2-2, but it only matters depending on how much you want to study the actions of Jattin’s opponent.
On that flop, Jattin checked-called his opponent’s 6,050 chip bet. The turn was a 5 and again, Jattin check-called, but this time it was of a 33,000 chips all-in. Jattin flipped over A-2 suited for, depending on the missing card from the flop, either trip deuces or two pair, Aces and Twos. His opponent had pocket Tens and whiffed on the river, giving Jattin a sizeable pot.
The Borgata Poker Open could end up getting large, as unlimited re-entries are allowed before Level 10, two levels into Day 2. It is also a “best stack forward” event, meaning that players who made it through Day 1A can play again on Day 1B if they so choose and carry their best finishing stack of the two days into Tuesday’s action.
Day 1B begins shortly, at 11:00am ET. We have presented the top ten chip stacks below, though there still might be some names to fill in. We say this because this list was posted on WPT.com last night, before the official chip counts were released and the top ten is comprised almost exclusively by big name players, so there is a good chance these are just select names at the top of the leader board. So peruse the list was a bit of skepticism, but know that these players are still amongst the leaders after Day 1A.
2016 World Poker Tour Borgata Poker Open Main Event – Day 1A Chip Leaders
1. Farid Jattin – 206,200
2. Josh Arieh – 187,000
3. Olivier Busquet – 177,700
4. Mimi Luu – 148,700
5. Randy Pfeifer – 137,200
6. Brian Yoon – 122,100
7. Kevin Saul – 113,900
8. Lexy Gavin – 109,800
9. Will Failla – 106,900
10. Eli Elezra – 105,200