Borgata Summer Poker Open Opens With $1 Million Kick Off
Anthony Andino grabbed the early chip lead in a three-way cooler on opening day.
The Borgata Summer Poker Open opened in Atlantic City on July 16 with the $600 Deep Stack Kick Off carrying a $1 million guarantee. The festival runs through July 31 at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa and offers more than $4 million in guaranteed prize pools across no-limit hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, and mixed games.
According to PokerNews, the series is powered by BetMGM Poker and it planned live reporting from six marquee events. The opener featured six starting flights, and the series’ million-dollar highlights included the $2,700 Summer Poker Open Championship, which has three starting flights and a share of a $1 million guaranteed prize pool, plus the $500 Borgata Almighty Stack with a $750,000 guarantee.
The Deep Stack Kick Off guarantee rose from $600,000 in 2025 to $1 million this year. Players could also qualify without buying in directly through online BetMGM satellites that started at $10, with $50 satellites into the Deep Stack Kick Off, Pot-Limit Omaha Championship, Borgata Almighty Stack and Monster Mirror Mystery Bounty, and $250 Championship qualifiers that paid a seat plus $500 in cash. Live satellites also ran inside the Borgata poker room, new BetMGM Poker sign-ups could get a 100% deposit match up to $1,000 and up to $75 in tournament tickets, and the schedule PDF said buy-ins were non-refundable and players had to be 21 or older.
Anthony Andino grabbed the early chip lead in Level 3 after a three-way cooler built to an 85,100-chip main pot. An early-position player showed 9♦9♣ for a flopped set, Jason Blank tabled K♠10♠ for top two pair with a missed flush draw, and Andino’s 7♠7♣ rivered a ten-high straight to scoop the pot.
The player with the flopped set salvaged a 3,800-chip side pot before moving all in blind under the gun on the next deal. Blank, sitting on about 30,000 chips after that hand, isolated with A♦K♥ against A♣8♦ and flopped a pair of kings to send his opponent to the rail.
Another opening-day hand produced a four-way all-in at the start of Level 7, with blinds at 400/800 and pots of 42,300 in the middle, plus side pots of 59,300 and 200. Kole Lekic, Daniel Leahy, Ben Weaver and John Dorsey all tabled sets on the K♥ J♥ 7♣ / Q♦ runout, and Weaver’s rivered queens won both side pots while Lekic kept the main pot for a quadruple-up.
A Pokerfuse player guide described the 2026 series as running July 15-31, with buy-ins starting at $250 and the championship priced at $2,700. It counted 29 events on the main schedule and 21 more on the secondary slate, with formats including PLO, Big O, HORSE, TORSE, and more.
