Event 23 Recap

$250 + $30 Deep Stack NLH (1 Re-Entry)

The last event of the Borgata Spring Poker Open saw many repeat customers, and in the end it's Eliano Mesquita (Toms River, NJ) who's the last man standing. Mesquita outlasted Kerry Small (Ventnor, NJ) and Paul Colwell (Mountain Lakes, NJ) in three-handed play to win the trophy and the $19,969 first place prize.

"Whenever you play, you want to win," says the construction worker, who's a Borgata regular. "I played well and really only got lucky on one hand."

The pivotal hand, which gave him 4 million of the 6.7 million chips in play, came when he knocked out Allan Lubin (Watchung, NJ) in 5th/$4,290. Mesquita only had an 11% chance to win the hand, but the 9♣ on the river was one of his 6 outs to complete a straight that propelled him to the win.

Lubin's knockout was followed by the elimination of Dave Grandieri (Danbury, CT) 4th/$5,547 who had an excellent week. Grandieri, who at one point had a commanding chip lead and broke the bubble, cashed for the second time in three days after finishing 2nd/$13,423 in Event 21 ($200).

Small's 3rd place finish ($6,878) was his third cash of the open and was joined at the cage by Daniel Chan (New York, NY) who finished 15th/$739 for his fourth cash of the series, including one final table.

Runner-up Colwell ($11,094) used pocket aces to get a true triple-up that took his stack to 300k and propelled him to the final table. Also at the final table were Don Matusow (Ventnor, NJ) 6th/$3,624, Alex Torres (Union City, NJ) 7th/$2,922, who hit a straight flush early in the day, Silvio Mantuano (New York, NY) 8th/$2,182, Wei Wang (Holmdel, NJ) 9th/$1,479, and Joe Egan (Philadelphia, PA) 10th/$961.

The day began with 305 entries chasing the $76,250 total buy-in. The field included Event 1 Champion Mike Dentale, Jane Gold, the mother of 2006 WSOP Main Event Champion Jamie Gold, Gil Sacks, 5th place Borgata Winter Open Championship Event ($126,000) and
Jeremy Schoenberger, the 2008 Borgata Summer Open third place finisher ($143,000), who finished 20th ($555) in this event.

After 17 days and 23 Main Events, the Spring Open came to a close with Mesquita, who failed to cash in Event 1, the only other event he played, returning to take home the title.