After two days of high level deep stack poker, Event 8 is officially in the books. And what a tournament it was!
Your winner is Alek Givotovsky from New York City who takes home $47,287 out of the $190,800 Total Buy In. Alek edged out Sammy Elkassir (Fort Lee, NJ) on the first hand of heads up play where he picked up A-K of diamonds and it held up.
The tournament was broken up into Day 1A and Day 1B with 477 total entries.
Many players busted out on day 1A (once, twice, or three times) and still entered and played on day 1B. Some busted out on day 1B and re-entered two more times.
The field was packed with some big name Borgata players including:
Sirous Jamshidi, Howard Wolper, Natale Kuey, Martha Patella, Mickey Woll, Chris Edwards, Gil Sacks, Mike Dentale, and Mike “Little Man” Sica.
Day 1A saw Chris Valsamos win two key hands to jet up to the chip lead. Chris had his last 20k in on a gutsy call where his AJ beat opponent’s K-J. Then he rivered a full-house up against Matthew Galluzo who at the time was the current chip leader. Chris had 326,000 after Day 1 and made the final table today finishing in 5th place for $10,550.
168 players entered Day 1A and 23 made in to Day 2 which resumed today at noon.
Roland Israelashvili was the Day 1A chip leader and overall chipleader with 450,000.
Roland held onto his lead until his AA got cracked at the final table. He finished in 8th place for $5,368.
At the start of Day 1B, Borgata's own 2010 WPT Champion Dwyte Pilgrim took a seat next to Gordon Eng. Lightening did not strike twice for Pilgrim who did not cash.
Other notables included: Robert Nguyen, Robert Chung-Shui, Alex Torres, Ian Palomo, John Lee, Joseph Capalbi, Jason Young, Barry Levy, Matt Muffins, Joanne Monteavaro, and Sheree Bykofsky.
With such a strong field of female felters, the “Last Women Standing” was awarded to Zem Mustefa who made it all the way to 11th place.
From the 50 players who survived 1B, your top three were:
1. Robert Woodall - 354,000
2. Yat Cheng - 330,500
3. Michael James McQuaid - 299,000
74 combined total players began this afternoon with 45 making the cake.
The final six players stood strong for over an hour with Claudius "The Beast" Ferris busting 6th.
Fourth place for $13, 418 went to the very animated Chris Wilson (Vineland, NJ) who had his girlfriend Danixa railing and supporting him most of the way.
Thrid place of $16,657 went to Matt Deluca who was up against two monster chip stacks.
But once again, your big winner of $47,287 and the Borgata Spring Poker Open trophy goes to Alek Givotovsky who edged out Sammy Elkassir heads up and outlasted all 477 deepstackers.
Alek had thousands and thousands of dollars frozen on-line when black friday hit. "Guess I'll be seeing a lot more of you guys" laughed the primarily on-line poker player.
This was Alek's biggest Borgata win and he credited it to his playing a ton of small ball poker. Cracking kings with his tournament life on the line didn't hurt either.
Look for him to play in 2011 Borgata Spring Poker Open Championship next week.
When asked to give any advice to our readers he simply said, "Play tight and wait for good hands".
Congratulations to all the deepstackers who cashed in this incredible field and especially to our winner, Alek Givotovsky.
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