Sunday, April 17, 2011

Event 7 Recap

$300 + 50 NL (Big Stack)

They say poker is a marathon, not a sprint and Event 7 proved it. We started at 12pm yesterday afternoon (Saturday) and finished 7:15 am Palm Sunday morning.

When the dust settled, Patricia Barsanti-Chou was crowned our Champion as she outlasted, outplayed, and outlucked 440 other players all chasing after Borgata's $154,000 total Buy-In with a whopping first place cash prize of $38,166.

With 20,000 starting chips and 30 minute blinds, players got to take their time and use those big stacks to their advantage.

What would be a Spring Poker Open tournament without noteables. Names such as Larry Gold (Long Island, NY), Jason Warriner (Absecon, NJ), Mike Dentale, and “Little Mike” Sica battled together. Sica tried running a bluff that got picked off for his tournament life and Dentale busted in Level 12.

The massive field was divided between The Signature Room and Borgata Poker Room. However at 12:50 AM (Sunday morning) with three tables remaining, everybody came over to Borgata Poker Room where we played to a rousing conclusion.

A subplot to Event 7 had Philly Sports Radio station, 97.5 The Fanatic sending Anthony Dimauro (Conshohocken, PA) and Ben Masur (Island Park, NJ) to Borgata for a weekend of poker. Unfortunately both players did not cash in this event.

A key hand for Bruce Frank, a stock trader from Montclair, NJ was when he rolled over A10 to scoop a nice pot before the break. His opponent stacked off with A♠K after the flop came down A10♠ 6♠. Bruce went on to final table and finish in 8th place.

Three Borgata Beauties, Christine Nelson (Norristown, PA), Dawn Pincus (Jersey), and Patricia Barsanti-Chou (Metuchen, NJ) cat clawed it out for the last woman standing. Patty took down that title and told me she was gonna go on to win the whole thing - and I wasn't surprised that she did it.

Chip leaders around dinner were Vincent Nuzzo, Phillip Sarcacino, and Justin Ying all of who failed to make the final table.

Mike Ackrish was the bubble boy and somebody had to explain to him exactly what that meant.

A player many were following was Ali “Taj” Kalid who chipped large after turning quad eights and held that lead for hours until falling to the steamroller known as Patty Barsanti-Chou. Kalid’s 6th place demise came at the final table after Patty flopped top two with 10-J vs. his K-J.

Other final table player included Allen Taylor, Bruce Frank, Mohamed Radwan, Vincent Tanico, and Angelo Modica.

Fourth place prize of $10,830 went to recent Villanova Graduate Gerard Campbell (Staten Island, NY) who was playing in his first live tournament ever today - along with two of his friends Victor, and Paul, also newbies.

Third place of $13,444 went to Joseph Lattarulo who was very appreciate to win and will use the cash to launch is poker career.

Second place of $22,033 went to Borgata regular, Micahel Buttacavoli who acted like it was just another day at the office.

But once again your 2011 SPO Event 7 winner was Patty Barsanti-Chou who took home the trophy after dominating a field of 440 players and a tough final table. She is well deserving of this 19-hour marathon win along with the $38,166 cash prize.

Sharing in the victory from the rail was her husband Allen and her charming friend Wendy.

"I'd like to take some of the money to fly to Vegas and play in the WSOP main event" said Patty.

If she plays as good as she did today, we just might see her on TV in November.

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