Jose Torres Leads World Poker Tour Borgata Poker Open After Day 1

Lance Bradley | September 15, 2008

The $5 million guaranteed prize pool at the 2008 Borgata Poker Open championship event kicked off Sunday in Atlantic City with 516 players in pursuit of the World Poker Tour event title.

Leading the way after Day 1 is Jose Torres with 263,775 in chips. But the field still has some more familiar names near the top of the list as 302 players survived through the first day. Sitting in fourth at the start of the day is Steven Dannenmann, the 2006 World Series of Poker runner-up has 249,150 chips. BLUFF Magazine’s next cover boy, Brandon Cantu, is in 10th spot with 182,000, just behind Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen.

The players are playing for $5,000,000 in prize money thanks to the $46,400 overlay, with $1,424,500 going to the winner. Some of the players who will not be fighting for their share of that prize pool include John Phan, Michael Mizrachi and David Singer who all busted in Day 1 action.

The average stack at the start of Day 2 is $69,489 and a total of 120 players are over that number. Day 2 action will conclude after eight levels of play.

Borgata Poker Open Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts

1. Jose Torres - 263,775

2. Onofrio Reina - 259,225

3. Lee Kim - 252,675

4. Steven Dannenman - 249,150

5. Kyle Burnside - 206,500

6. Stephen Vanauken - 189,550

7. Eracles Panayiotou - 187,350

8. Ryan Young - 186,500

9. Thayer Rasmussen - 183,325

10. Brandon Cantu - 182,000