Jean Gaspard Leads WPT Borgata Winter Open

The World Poker Tour Winter Borgata Poker Open wrapped the first of two Day 1 flights and drew an impressive 1,120 entrants. Registration remains open for two hours of play Tuesday before any prize pool is set. A total of 588 players survived their opening flights to advance to Day 2 and leading them all is Jean Gaspard with 216,900.

Shankar Pillai was the only other player to cross the 200,000-mark, while Oliviet Busquet, Asher Conniff and Michael Hahn all finished in the top ten stacks.

Tyler Kenney, David Paredes, Darren Elias, Shaun Deeb and Anthony Zinno all return to business on Tuesday with above average chip stacks.

Day 1A drew 379 entries with 181 advancing, while Day 1B had a much larger field with 741 entries that advanced 407 players. The registration desk has been busy and tournament officials hope to beat 2016’s mark of 1,171 total entrants.

Unofficially, the field already crushed the $3 million guarantee with $3.69 million. They are 92 players from hitting $4 million and 109 players for setting a new field size record.

Action returns for Day 2 in the upstairs Convention Space where the field has a long, ten level day ahead. 

Overall Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Jean Gaspard – 216,900
2. Shankar Pilai – 209,200
3. Ryan Smith – 185,400
4. Olivier Busquet – 185,000
5. Asher Conniff – 180,400
6. Frank Calderone – 175,700
7. Abe Aboukhalil – 165,000
8. Michael Hahn – 162,000
9. Stephen Deutsch – 160,100
10. Adnan Mohammad – 152,700