Once again the players have turned out to the Borgata in Atlantic City for the Borgata Poker Open and it is shaping up to be an outstanding final table battle. With 25 players remaining, David Parades is set up to take aim at his first major poker championship with several top pros in pursuit.
127 runners came back to the Borgata tournament room to continue the festivities on Wednesday with James Gilbert holding onto a slim lead over Curt Kohlberg at the start of the day. Lurking down the leaderboard a bit was Matt Affleck, poised to strike in fourth place, alongside former World Champion Jonathan Duhamel, Jamie Kerstetter, Day 1A chip leader Shannon Shorr and Day 1B chip leader Sofia Lövgren, making her debut on the WPT circuit in the United States. With the call to “shuffle up and deal” on Wednesday, the real work was about to begin as the remaining players looked to pop the money bubble.
The players would blast through the unfortunate 27 who would only take home memories rather quickly on Wednesday. Shorr took out WPT Champions’ Club member Steve Brecher within moments of the start of the day’s play while Hanz Winzeler was able to double up to stay alive as the bubble approached. When hand-for-hand play began, many eyes were on one player, David Zemel, who had exactly five hands left to play before he would be all in with just the ante. On the fifth hand, Ralph Wong (pocket Jacks) would eliminate Ko Maddock (pocket fives) on a J-4-4-7-A board, putting everyone – including Zemel, who had exactly one 5000 tournament chip left in front of him – into the minimum money of $6575.
From there, the players started crashing the cash out cage at the Bellagio. Lövgren was among the first to go with some cash, finishing in 97th place, and she would be joined by such luminaries as Matt Brady, Winzeler, Kerstetter, Kohlberg, Shorr and Duhamel as the night wore on. There was one hand that, while it didn’t result in an elimination, allowed those at the table to witness a potentially once-in-a-lifetime occurrence on the felt.
Two men, Tanner Millen and Terry Grimes, got their chips to the center on a 6♣ 5♥ 8♣ 7♣ 10♥ board and, once their cards were turned up, their fellow players were stunned beyond belief. Grimes turned up his 5♣ 4♣ and had to feel pretty confident with his straight flush to eliminate Millen from the tournament, but Millen stunningly popped up with the 10♣ 9♣ for a bigger straight flush to double up through Grimes. Grimes will be returning to the tables on Thursday with his eyes on the championship; Millen was a late-night elimination at the hands of Affleck.
Through the carnage of the more than 100 players eliminated on Wednesday, Paredes was able to avoid the pitfalls to barely emerge as the chip leader heading to today’s action:
1. David Paredes, 2.58 million
2. Maurice Hawkins, 2.57 million
3. Jean ‘Prince’ Gaspard, 2.569 million
4. Jean-Pierre Sevigny, 2.135 million
5. Roman Valerstein, 1.853 million
6. Blake Whittington, 1.617 million
7. Andjelko Andrejevic, 1.615 million
8. David Lee, 1.42 million
9. Thomas Campbell, 1.295 million
10. Matt Affleck, 1.292 million
Among the remaining 25 players are the defending champion of this tournament, Darren Elias (13th place, 1.072 million), Johannes Mueller (14th, 1.068 million), Vinny Pahuja (16th, 888,000) and WPT Champions’ Club member Jonathan Little (17th, 850,000).
Action is expected to play down to the WPT final table of six, where each player is guaranteed a six figure payday ($146,291 is the minimum for the sixth place finish). All 25 men left in the tournament are eyeing the top prize, though, of $723,227 and their seat at the Season XIV WPT World Championship event next April.
