The World Poker Tour's online edition of one of its most prestigious live stops failed to reach its guarantee over the weekend. The Borgata Poker Open Online is being hosted by partypoker on its U.S. network, but didn't attract quite as much traffic as hoped.
The $3,200 + $300 buy-in event garndered 305 entries. That made for a prize pool of $976,000, which the powers that be increased to $1 million as per the guarantee. Don't feel too bad for the huge multinational companies though. With the rake included, partypoker and the WPT still turned a net profit on the event.
Only players in New Jersey could enter the event, which meant that partypokerUS' customers in Michigan and Pennsylvania would have had to hop a Greyhound and book a hotel if they wanted to play. This was almost certainly the biggest factor in the event's modest failure.
The localization of the event was a fitting decision for an event that bears the name of one of Atlantic City's biggest casinos.
The event started yesterday, September 19, and played down to 88 players. The final table is scheduled for tomorrow.
Currently "FitzroidPoo" leads the field with 16,980,000 in chips. The player is in the running with 88 players left. Other notable players still in the running include: Michael Marder, Shankar Pillai, Darren Elias, Tom Wheaton, and Katie Stone.
Forty-eight of those players will cash, with the min-cash set at $5,614. The first-place prize sits at $195,748.
Big name moves online
Soheb Porbandarwala is the first player to get his name on the Mike Sexton cup for an online win. He played the WPT Borgata Poker Open Online, but expressed regrets about the limits placed on the fields.
"I’m happy that WPT, Borgata, and partypoker are continuing to offer these tournaments to American markets," Porbandarwala said before adding, "hopefully, the isolated player pools combine soon and we can have even bigger events."
Partypoker's newest sponsored pro, Darren Elias, weighed in on the guarantee ahead of the event.
"Great to see @WPT hosting a $3,500 Main Event on @partypokerUS Network," Elias tweeted. "With many live events postponed, expecting a lot of players to travel to NJ and blow this guarantee away."
Unfortunately, this particular prediction did not come to pass.
WPT Borgata Poker Open Online chip counts Day 1
| Position | Player Name | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
| 1st | "FitzroidPoo" | 16,980,000 | 212 bb |
| 2nd | Yong "IReadYrSoul" Kwon | 14,280,000 | 179 bb |
| 3rd | "Billson" | 10,420,000 | 130 bb |
| 4th | "upayformypennys" | 9,290,000 | 116 bb |
| 5th | "LatteLarrys" | 8,650,000 | 108 bb |
| 6th | "Mercedes1951" | 7,640,000 | 96 bb |
| 7th | "Minutz" | 7,520,000 | 94 bb |
| 8th | Frank "FrankyFunk" Funaro | 6,980,000 | 87 bb |
| 9th | "troutguy51" | 6,370,000 | 80 bb |
| 10th | "betbetbet' | 6,100,000 | 76 bb |
Featured image source: Twitter
