After two days of play in the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Borgata Poker Open, tournament veteran John D’Agostino leads the way with a stack of 681,000. He has a slight lead over the second place stack of Giuseppe Pantaleo and, when play resumes for Day 3 on Tuesday, both will be seated at the same table.
Table 7 will likely be the focal point for much of the day on Tuesday, as D’Agostino and Pantaleo will collide. A total of 165 players remain in the hunt for the $733,000 top prize and an even 100 will make the money. D’Agostino is gunning for his third WPT final table at Borgata.
One of the final eliminations of Monday’s action was Bill Gazes. On a board of J-9-4 with two spades, Gazes committed his remaining stack with Q-10 for an open-ended straight draw. Full Tilt Poker pro Gavin Smith made the call for his tournament life with K-J for top pair and running aces gave the newly minted bracelet winner a critical double up. Gazes was eliminated on the very next hand when his A-6 could not draw out on Shawn Pilot’s A-K.
Smith would bust before the day concluded, joining Chris Bell and Nancy Todd Tyner as last-minute casualties. Smith pushed his remaining stack into the middle with A-K, but could not come out on the winning end of a coin flip against pocket sixes.
Monday’s action at Borgata was marred by two altercations between poker players. In the first, Matt “All In At 420” Stout and Allen Bari tangled after Tweeting disparaging comments about each other. Stout conveyed via cyberspace, “Left my headphones in the car and Al Bari is sitting on my right. Related story: finally told him what I (and most players) think of him.”
Then, Stout used two Tweets to explain, “Dub’d KQ thru Al Bari’s AK. Then he berated me. Tried to explain to new guy that he was a POS. Al Bari called floor n got a 1 orbit penalty on me bc he’s an impetulent child and I’m not, so I don’t call floor when he curses @ me.” Stout sat out for one round and did not survive Day 2, while Bari owns the 83rd largest stack at 170,600.
Then, a near-riot occurred after Steve Buckner won a pot at the expense of Larry Wolf. After comments were exchanged between the two and Buckner celebrated his win by “skipping up and down the aisle,” a woman on the rail came to Buckner’s side. The supporter exclaimed, “He is not a jerk! He is not a jerk! I know this man, and he is a kind man. You don’t know him! He is not a jerk!”
Wolf then fired back, leaving the railbird to ask him, “Are you Jewish?” The three-word tangent prompted Jeremy Schwartz, who was also seated at the table, to confront the mystery woman. Coverage found on WorldPokerTour.com details, “Borgata Tournament Director Tab Duchateau runs over at this point, and he quickly gains control of the situation. He gets Schwartz and the woman to back down a bit, and tells Wolf to calm down so he can handle things. Duchateau asks for a very quick summary of what happened, and 10 seconds later has the woman escorted out of the tournament area by security, and then removed from the room entirely.”
Seated nearby, Christian “charder30” Harder gave his two cents on what went down: “Dear god poker players are nuts. Almost a fist fight between a girl and dude at adjacent table. Damn Borgata.”
Did we mention there was also poker being played? Here are the top 10 chip stacks entering Day 3 of the WPT Borgata Poker Open:
1. John D’Agostino – 681,200
2. Giuseppe Pantaleo – 668,100
3. Francis Lamothe – 611,800
4. Lars Bonding – 521,900
5. Marc Goldman – 506,600
6. Eric Salinas – 495,000
7. Jens Eisner – 477,900
8. Stan Sinclair – 449,300
9. Jeffrey “jpapola” Papola – 447,300
10. Benjamin Klier – 433,800
Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest.