After battling through a massive field over the past four days, the final table is now set for the World Poker Tour’s Borgata Poker Open in Atlantic City. Leading the final six men will be James Gilbert, but every player at the final table has a wealth of experience and could take down the championship.
The day started on Thursday with 25 men holding dreams of taking a major poker championship down. At the helm of the ship was David Paredes, sitting on a stack of 2.58 million chips, but both Maurice Hawkins and Jean ‘Prince’ Gaspard were within a big blind of him. There was also the chance for the defending champion of the tournament, Darren Elias, to repeat as champion (something that has never occurred on the WPT) and the chance for another former WPT champion, Jonathan Little, to add to his resume.
Coming out of the gate, one of those dreams was crushed. Only minutes into the opening of the day’s play, Hawkins would put out a raise only to see Little come all in over his opening bet for approximately three-quarters of a million chips. Hawkins made the call and was leading with his A-Q off suit over Little’s K♠ Q♠, to which the flop provided some excitement. A 10♠ 2♠ 4♥ flop kept Hawkins in the lead, but Little now opened up some flush outs that were greatly appreciated. The river 4♦ was no help to either man and, once the 3♣ landed on the river, Little’s tournament was surprisingly done in 25th place and Hawkins took over the lead.
Paredes attempted to keep pace with Hawkins, but it was Gaspard who would be the big mover in the early action. Gaspard eliminated Vinny Pahuja and Dongjun Ji in 23rd and 24th places, respectively, to creep close to the four million mark in chips. He would broach that mark in battling against David Stefanski when Stefanski couldn’t find a call on the river after Gaspard had moved all in, holding the lead at the end of Level 24.
Elias’ run at a repeat of the championship he won in 2014 nearly came to a close against Gaspard. After an Elias bet pre-flop, Gaspard three-bet the action and Elias decided to make his stand. Gaspard didn’t hesitate in the slightest in making the call and tabling Big Slick. Not surprisingly, Elias also turned up the A-K and, after a ten high board ran, they split up the blinds and antes as Gaspard maintained the chip lead through the entire level.
Lacking the ammunition to continue firing, Elias would eventually succumb to the big stacks surrounding him. On his final hand, Roman Valerstein called the all-in flop bet from Elias, looking to take out a strong player. Elias had hit on the J-7-3 rainbow flop with his A-7, but Valerstein caught up with his A-Q when a Queen came on the turn. Now looking for another seven to save him, Elias instead saw a trey to send him to the rail in 17th place in the tournament.
Gaspard was keeping a pretty good stack of chips in front of him, but some of his opponents were beginning to whittle small portions of it away. Gilbert was one of the beneficiaries of Gaspard’s stack, taking over the lead from Gaspard when his 9-7 eclipsed Gaspard’s pocket fours on an A-9-3-10-5 board. The news would only get worse for Gaspard as, a few hands later, Gilbert cut another million or so away from him to extend his lead.
The attacks from Gilbert seemed to put Gaspard in a different mindset as his chips now slowly slipped through his fingers. Gaspard doubled up Stefanski to fall under two million chips and then had to fold trip Kings against Valerstein to drop to around 1.5 million. Gaspard would get some revenge on Stefanski, however, eliminating him in 11th place to set up the unofficial final table.
On the third hand of the unofficial final table, Thomas Campbell was able to earn a double up through Gaspard. That was the precursor of more unfortunate occurrences for Gaspard as, getting his chips all-in and at risk against Valerstein, both unveiled A-K and a chop was thought to be imminent. Valerstein’s Big Slick was suited in clubs, however, which made a difference on the 10♣ 4♦ 3♣ 8♥ 9♣ board. Instead of splitting the pot, Gaspard instead took the walk to the Borgata cash out cage in ninth place, two places worse than last year’s tournament.
Gilbert, who stayed pretty quiet after his repeated clashes with Gaspard, would be responsible for the final elimination of the evening. After a raise from Andjelko Andrejevic, Gilbert three bet him out of the big blind. Andrejevic attempted to push Gilbert off his hand with an all-in bet, but Gilbert refused to let go of his Big Chick (A-Q). Andrejevic’s pocket Jacks were in the lead all the way to the 5-4-2-7 turn. The river, however, flipped the fortunes in coming with a Queen to give Gilbert the hand, eliminate Andrejevic in seventh place and set up today’s final table.
1. James Gilbert, 9.65 million
2. Maurice Hawkins, 7 million
3. David Paredes, 5.625 million
4. Joe Kuether, 3.77 million
5. Jerry Payne, 3.025 million
6. Roman Valerstein, 2.155 million
The final table will being this afternoon at 4:30PM (Eastern Time) and the WPT Live Stream will pick up the action on a delayed basis at 5PM. Who will be the next champion on the WPT? By the end of today, we will have the answer to that question.
