We give Atlantic Shitty a lot of crap for being a craphole because it is a craphole. Seriously people take craps right on the street. We don't make this stuff up, we've seen it happen. But there is one shiny beacon in the shitheap and that is the Borgata.
From being serviced by decently hot cocktail waitresses (such as Margarita at right) to devouring a big ole juicy 36 oz. Gotham from Old Homestead to pruning ourselves in one of the deep tubs in an opus suite and placing a wager on the Jets game in the Borgata Sports Book/Poker Room, we love ourselves some Borgata every once in awhile. And best of all, when we're at the Borg, we don't feel like we're gonna get knifed every time we walk out to our cars. Little things like that make the difference.
Anyway, all this is an indirect way to get to the point that the Borgata is hosting its deep stack $500,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool poker tournament this week, and proving once again it knows how to do things right, it drew an impressive 775 runners (including Curb star Cheryl Hines) to the $2,000 buy-in tournament, pumping the prize purse up to $1.55 million. Contrast that with PokerStars LAPT Rio event that only drew 314 players for a smallish $785,000 prize pool and you have an economic comparison study between the First World and the transitional, emerging, developing or whatever you call the second-ish world countries of Latin America.
The event, which started on Sunday, is down to its final 10 players competing for the $395,095 first place prize, and it looks exactly like what you'd expect from an east coast tournament, with a Russian, Asian and a little bit of an Arab-Israeli conflict going on at the table. Most notable of the group is Alan Engel, aka Bodog Ari, who is stacked in the middle with 1.8 million in chips. We've always been big fans of the kid, for keeping a relatively low profile while kicking ass online and having some occasional insightful non-poker stuff to say on his blog here. So good luck to him.
Here's how the final table is lined up at the Borgata today:
1 Matthew Milliken -- Madison, WI -- $3,578,000
2 Kambiz Behbahani -- Fairfax Station, VA -- $2,773,000
3 Harry Frankel -- Monsey, NY -- $2,112,000
4 Mark Reynolds -- Eldersburg, MD -- $1,866,000
5 Alan Engel -- Las Vegas, NV -- $1,809,000
6 Hamid Michael Hakami -- Baltimore, MD -- $1,745,000
7 Eric Siegel -- Melville, NY -- $1,004,000
8 Mihail Stoykov -- Philadelphia, PA -- $935,000
9 Steve Ryan -- Lake Ronkonkoma, NY -- $800,000
10 Jin Chung -- New York, NY -- $785,000
Stay posted here for results from today's final table at the Borgata.
UPDATE: So what do we know? The above wasn't the final table but just the top 10 of the final 21? going into today. The Borgata site (here) made it look otherwise. Thanks to the guys at LivePokerRadio.com for cluing us in. Go here for their live updates from the floor of the Borg. Last we looked they were down to 7 players, with BodogAri one of them, and they were discussing a chop. Or more like arguing one as players talk taxes and shit. Good luck with that.
Photo above of mouthfully-named Borgata employee Margarita Kobilianets from the Babes of Borgata 2008 Calendar.
The World Series of Poker is set to announce later today that it plans to open an Official World Series of Poker retail store in Vegas in the near future. Scouting for the location is currently underway. Unfortunately tearing down Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill isn't being considered.
