Days 1 and 2 of the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open seemed to fly by as the massive field saw plenty of eliminations in quick succession. A more serious approach seems to have come over the players now though as big pay days become a reality for some.
After the frantic pace at which day 2 was played, a change seemed to have come over the room on day 3 as the money bubble approached. 100 players would get paid but the process of trimming the field from 101 to 100 took in excess of two hours as the fear of being the bubble boy took hold on the remaining players. At one point it looked as though the target of playing down to 28 for the day might not be reached, but once Paul Volpe had taken that final unpaid spot there was the inevitable slew of all ins from the short stacks who had been hanging on.
Yung “Andy” Hwang had been amongst the chip leaders as play ended on day 2 and was able to make the most of the tense play on day 3 to end as the only player with over 3 million chips (a 190 big blind stack.) Also in contention going in to day 4 was reigning WPT player of the year Joe Serock, fresh from a third place at the NBC Heads Up Championship and making nice progress here at the Borgata. That progress came to a juddering halt when he ran into the pocket aces of Jeremy Druckman though, and Serock was out in 14th place for another near miss in a WPT event.
Meanwhile Yung Hwang seemed to be running away with it all as the unofficial final table was reached until he too ran into pocket aces to allow the gap between himself and the rest of the field to close. Jim Anderson was the grateful recipient of the double up, putting him in great position when the televised final table of six was reached moments later.
When play resumes at 13:00 Eastern Time the final table will look like this:
Seat 1. Jeremy Druckman - 6,170,000 (61 bb)
Seat 2. Matthew Salsberg - 1,920,000 (19 bb)
Seat 3. Matt Haugen - 3,235,000 (32 bb)
Seat 4. Jim Anderson - 7,830,000 (78 bb)
Seat 5. Mike Gogliormella - 2,255,000 (22 bb)
Seat 6. Andy Hwang - 9,550,000 (95 bb)
The final will be streamed on the internet with a 30 minute delay and can be viewed here if you fancy following their pursuit of the $730,053 first prize.