The Borgata in Atlantic City is starting the new year with a huge festival and a ton of big guarantees.
The Borgata Winter Poker Open (BWPO), powered by BetMGM Poker, runs from January 2-26 and that $10 million guarantee covers 22 events. A further 20 secondary events and qualifiers will mean there’s always plenty to play for in AC during January.
BetMGM has been running online qualifiers from as low as $2 since early December, so we’re expecting the fields during the series to include both new and experienced, live and online players for a packed tournament calendar which will run for most of the month.
Live qualifiers start on New Year’s Day
Starting January 1 at 11am, keen players can get a jump on qualifying for some of the major events in the BWPO calendar, with live satellites available from just $160. Live qualifiers and side events will run near-daily throughout the festival, up to January 21.
The first major event of the series begins on January 2, with the $2m GTD Kick Off Deep Stack event running three starting flights - another two will run on January 3-4 - before Day 2 on Friday, January 5. The final table for this $800 tournament will be on January 6, and will be live streamed.
Another BWPO highlight starts on January 7. The Almighty Million event will have a - you guessed it - $1m GTD prize pool for a buy-in of just $500. Five starting flights, January 7-9, should beef up the pot before Days 2 and 3 on January 10-11. Again, the final table will be streamed live.
Bounty hunters welcome
The schedule features a number of bounty tournaments, and continues the trend of offering a mystery bounty tourney with a massive top prize.
- The ‘Half a Milly’ Mystery Bounty event will have a $2m guarantee and a $500k top bounty prize, for a buy-in of $2,200. Three starting flights begin January 14.
- A Mini-Mystery Bounty, with $250k GTD and a $50k top bounty, will run January 23-25. The two-day tournament will have a buy-in of $560.
- One-day Big Chip Bounty events run on January 12 and 20, each offering $500 bounties for eliminating players, and with buy-ins of $1,050 and $1,100 respectively. A $600 tourney with $200 bounties also runs January 5.
- The two-day Knock Out Bounty event runs January 22-23, with $1k bounties on each player’s head and $100,000 GTD. The buy-in for this one is $2,100.
Five-day Main Event has $3,000,000 GTD
There will be just two starting flights for the series Main Event, a $5,300 buy-in tourney, with Day 1s running January 21-22.
Days 2-4 will run January 23-25 before the final table live stream closes the action on January 26.
Other notable events on the schedule include HOSE, PLO, O8, Seniors’ and Ladies’ events, a charity fundraiser and a Deep/Deeper/Deepest series of tourneys from just $400. You can find the full schedule of tournaments here.
The 2024 edition of the Borgata Winter Poker Open is the 16th time the festival has run, with a history going all the way back to 2006 when Michael Mizrachi won the inaugural Main Event. From 2006-08 and 2013-20 it was an official stop on the World Poker Tour.
As the official media partner PokerOrg will keep you in the loop with action and news from the Main Event on our Poker Instant feed.
Images courtesy of the Borgata and WPT
