WPT Borgata Poker Open Attendance Falls

Monday marked Day 2 of the 2008 Borgata Poker Open. The World Poker Tour event, which is being held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, generated a field of 516 players, down from 560 in 2007. The attendance on-hand at the casino represented a drop of 8% from last year. Leaders in the early hours of Day 2 included Stephen Vanauken, Sirous Jamshidi, Ryan Young, Kyle Burnside, Eric Panayiotou, and Steve Dannenmann.

As of the early stages of Day 2, here were the top ten chip stacks in the WPT Borgata Poker Open, according to the WPT’s Live Updates site:
1. Stephen Vanauken – 456,000
2. Sirous Jamshidi – 340,000
3. Ryan Young – 330,000
4. Kyle Burnside – 266,000
5. Eric Panayiotou – 265,000
6. Steve Dannenmann – 248,000
7. Raj Patel – 240,000
8. Brandon Cantu – 240,000
9. Lee Kim – 233,000
10. Thayer Rasmussen – 180,000

The top ten represent an experienced crop of WPT players. Young finished 56th in last year’s Borgata Poker Open, cashing for $14,754. Burnside has logged WPT cashes on both coasts of the United States, nabbing a 23rd place finish at the Borgata in 2006 and grabbing 41st in the L.A. Poker Classic during Season VI of the WPT for $21,280. Panayiotou made the televised final table of the Bellagio Cup III event, which was ultimately won by online poker pro Kevin Saul.

Dannenmann finished as the runner up to Joe Hachem in the 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event, pocketing $4.25 million. He finished 33rd in last year’s Borgata Poker Open for $25,820. Patel, like Dannenmann, has had success in the poker spotlight. The Connecticut native won the Foxwoods Poker Classic in 2007 for $1.3 million. He followed that up by finishing 11th in the most recent installment of the Foxwoods tournament.

Cantu won the 2008 Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament for $1 million, barreling through a final table that included Full Tilt Poker pro Jennifer Harman, John “The Razor” Phan, and Steve Sung. In addition, Cantu is a WSOP bracelet holder. He took down a $1,500 buy-in No Limit Hold’em tournament in 2006, earning him over three-quarters of a million dollars.

Rasmussen made the final table of the WPT’s Mandalay Bay Poker Championship during Season VI, finishing fourth and cashing for $131,170. He also recorded cashes in the WPT Championship during Season VI and the Bellagio Cup IV. He has seven WSOP cashes lifetime for a grand total of nearly $70,000, including a 321st place finish during the 2008 Main Event.

The Borgata Poker Open will play down to a winner on Thursday and the televised six-man final table will air as part of the seventh season of the WPT on Fox Sports Net. At the time of writing, there were 206 entrants remaining on Day 2; a total of 320 survived Day 1.

After the Borgata, the WPT crew will travel northwest to the Fallsview Casino Resort in Ontario, Canada, the site of the 2008 North American Poker Championship. The Canadian poker tournament is typically popular with the younger generation of poker players, who are able to gamble legally in Canada at 18 years-old. In the United States, poker players must be 21 years-old.