Home / Poker News February 2014 / Borgata Winter Poker Open Championship Event – Anthony Merulla Wins
Borgata Winter Poker Open Championship Event – Anthony Merulla Wins
Posted by: Randy Williams - Sun, 2014-02-02 09:02
The $3 million Main Event of the Borgata Winter Poker Open wrapped up on Friday, with Anthony Merulla’s victory. Merulla picked up $842.3k after he defeated David Paredes, the start of the day chip leader, heads-up. The runner-up picked up $499.5k.
Merulla had started the last day of the
poker tournament with the 5th stack (out of 6), but when all had been said and done, all the chips in play were piled up in front of him.
The final table looked like it would start out on a cautious note, but all that was tossed out the window on the 11th hand.
That hand proved to be the one that would ignite Merulla’s title run. Three players pushed all-in before the flop. Merulla, who had pocket Qs (one of which was a diamond) Jared Jaffe, who had pocket 10s and Farid Jattin, who had pocket Ks. The flop didn’t change anything, but a 10 on the turn gave the lead to Jaffe and a diamond on the river filled a flush for Merulla, tripling him up, sending Jattin to the rail and severely crippling Jaffe.
Jattin’s 6th place reward was $174.3k.
Vladislav Mezheritsky was the next victim of the final table. He picked up $213.6k for his 6th place.
Jared Jaffe was the next one to bite the dust. He ran out of chips in 4th place, never having properly absorbed the damage Merulla did to him in the above described hand. His reward was $258.5k.
Anthony Maio’s elimination in 3rd place set up the heads-up stage of the tournament. Merulla was the one responsible for his elimination, too.
The heads-up bout between Merulla and Paredes lasted for about 100 hands. The final hand of the tournament saw Merulla’s Qd, 3d, best Paredes’ Q,8o.
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