I'm currently at the Borgata Casino in lovely Atlantic City, NJ and I'll be here over the next few days covering the World Poker Tour Borgata Open. Buy-in is $10,000 and players start with $20K in chips. That structure is great for the entrants because it gives them more ammo to play with. The first two days of the Borgata Poker Open were held upstairs in the ballroom. 515 players filled the room and they were competing for a prize pool worth over $1.5 million. The top 45 players will get paid. Last year, Daniel Negreanu won this event. He didn't play long enough to defend his title. He was eliminated on the first day.

Here's the payouts:
1st: $1,498,650
2nd: $799,280
3rd: $427,115
4th: $349,685
5th: $299,730
6th: $249,775
7th: $199,820
8th: $149,865
9th: $99,910
10th-12th: $64,942
13th-15th: $49,955
16th-18th: $34,969
19th-27th: $24,978
28th-36th: $14,987
37th-45th: $12,489

Over half the field was eliminated on Day One which included a ton of big names: Johnny World Hennigan, Mel Judah, Daniel Negreanu, Chris Bigler, Liz Lieu, T.J. Cloutier, Edward Moncada, David Williams, My Main Man Freddy Deeb, Johnny Bax, Paul Darden, Andrew Black, John Myung, Miami John Cerruto, Antonio Esfandiari, Jennifer Tilly, Harry Demitriou, Mike Wattel, Phil Ivey, Toto Leonidas, Mimi Tran, Hoyt Corkins, Padraig Parkinson, Brad Kondracki, Dan Heimiller, Phil Unabomber Laak, Andy Bloch and Amnon Filippi were all busted on Day One.

At the end of Day One, only 285 players survived out of the 515 who started. Tom Coan emerged as the early chip leader with over $280K in chips. Frenchman David Benyamine was a close second along with 2005 WSOP main event runner-up Steve Dannemann, who was among the chipleaders with Chip Jett and David Pham.

Early on Day Two Chris Jesus Ferguson was knocked out when his Big Slick lost to A-9. Also eliminated were: Tim Phan, Mike Gracz, Quinn Do, Tony Cousineau, David Benyamine, Erik Seidel, Bob Stupak, Chip Jett, Carlos Mortensen, Cyndy Violette, Steve Brecher, Allen Cunningham, Minh Nguyen, Mickey Appleman, JC Tran, Farzad Bonyadi, Jean-Robert Bellande, Alan Goehring, Steve Zolotow, Blair Rodman, Russell Rosenbloom, Kristy Gazes, Bill Gazes, and Layne Flack.

Action ended with about 62 players remaining. Mike Matusow and John D'Agastino were among the chipleaders. There were some other notable players still left including Clonie Gowen, Kathy Liebert, Evelyn Ng, Tex Barch, Josh Arieh, Erick Lindgren, David Pham, JC Tran, Barry Greenstien, David SInger, Steve Dannemann, and Chris Grigorian. Play will resume at 11 am on Wednesday and will not stop until six players remain. The final table is scheduled to tape at 5pm on Thursday.