Lewis Esposito Leads Borgata Summer Poker Open After Day 1a
The $2,700 championship drew 89 entries in its first flight, with 24 players bagging chips and the event still headed for a $1 million guarantee.
Lewis Esposito finished Day 1a of the Borgata Summer Poker Open Championship on top, bagging 425,500 chips after the opening flight left 24 players surviving from 89 entries at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City.
The $2,700 championship is the flagship event of the Borgata Summer Poker Open and is playing toward a $1 million guarantee. The opening flight ran through 10 levels of 60 minutes each.
According to PokerNews’ live coverage, Esposito’s run included a big scare. He was down to as little as 16,000 before getting away from an overpair against Gregory Bauer, then rebuilt his stack with a series of larger pots.
His biggest pot came in an all-in showdown against Robert Ozello, where Esposito flopped a set of nines and narrowly covered Ozello to send him out in the event’s largest pot so far. Esposito also eliminated Jordan Glazer late in the night to cement his lead.
George St. Lawrence was the closest player to Esposito on the overnight leaderboard. Vittorio Abbate finished fifth overall with 226,000 after winning his entry in a Poker4Life charity event in New York City last month.
Four women advanced from Day 1a. Xiaoqiong Liu led that group with 221,500, followed by Emily Sun with 165,000, Sharman Olshan with 65,500 and Kathy Saraf with 51,000.
Other notable stacks included Charles Hook with 114,000, Brandon Mueller with 74,000, Nicholas Funaro with 50,500 and BetMGM ambassador Darren Elias with 79,000 after using one bullet.
Two more starting flights are still to come, both set for 12:15 p.m. local time on the next two days. Players can also buy in before Day 2 on Wednesday, July 29, and PokerNews says it will continue live coverage until a winner is crowned on July 31.
