Pham Regains Lead at WPT Borgata

Pham Regains Lead at WPT Borgata

Thursday, 19 September 2013

From a bumper starting field of 1,189 runners the WPT Borgata Poker Open is now poised on just 36 players.

Yesterday's action saw a host of pros and qualifiers lose their stacks as Cong Pham moved to the head of the pack to retain the chip lead he once held on Day 2.

With 174 players knowing they had to grind just a few levels before finding themselves on the 111th place bubble, the session started in a somewhat cautious manner. However, as the pressure of the blinds increased something had to give and by the time tournament was one elimination from the money it was Josh Levkov falling foul of the dreaded bubble.

Hand-for-hand was relatively swift and after the board rolled out: Jd 6c 5h 4d 7h Levkov may have been confident that his set of jacks was going to scoop the pot but when Daniel Howe turned over 7d 3d he quickly realised his tournament was over.

Now down to 110 and with at least some return on their investment secured it was time for the real action to begin. Indeed, as the likes of Jonathan Little (59th - $9,662), Matt Salsberg (46th - $10,988) and Paul Volpe (39th - $12,883) all hit the rail, the likes of Pham, Vanessa Selbst and Matt Glantz thrived.

Indeed, despite the tournament directors wanting to play down to 27 a war of attrition in the final stages of the day meant they had to bring things to a close with 36 runners still in contention.

End of Day 3 Top Five Chip Counts:
1 Cong Pham 2,548,000
2 Jake Schwartz 2,145,000
3 David Johnston 2,050,000
4 David Randall 2,020,000
5 Vanessa Selbst 1,739,000
6 Jeremy Kottler 1,734,000



Tags: WPT Borgata Open, Cong Pham, Vanessa Selbst