Event 18 Recap

$1000 + $90 No Limit Hold'em

Event 18 is in the books and our Champion is amateur weekend warrior poker player, Avraham Lipman. He'll take home the 2011 Borgata Fall Poker Open Trophy along with a huge payday of $70,614. Congratulations on taking down a very tough field of seasoned poker-pros and Borgata regulars.

Action kicked off yesterday at 11AM where each player who plunked down $1090 was given 15,000 chips. No re-buys, no bounties, just no limit hold-em excitement.

Players enjoyed the 50 minute blind levels so they could show off their skills and really play some serious poker. The field included 260 players with heavy hitters such as Adam Lippert, Lee Childs, Matt Maccaroni, George Medrano, Olivier Busquet, Dan Pignataro, Tim Finne, Ian Palomo, Joanne Monteavaro, Steve Ryan, Ryan Eriquezzo, Sirous Jamshidi, Dave Inselberg, Jamie Kerstetter, Gordon Eng, Jesse Cohen (fresh from his 13th place finish in event 17), Steven Levy, Steven Cho, Eugene Todd, Jesse Yaginuma, Vinny Pahuja, Feming Chan (fresh from his 10th place finish in event 17), Josh Brikis, Johanssy Joseph (winner of event 14), Mike Dentale, Eric Panayiotou, Bill Blanda, Chris Bell, Russell Crane, and John Lakatosh.

At the start of Day 2 (noon today), poker pro Jason Min (Flushing, NY) had the Max in chips with 362,000. Michael Armsrong was the ultimate shorty with 23,400.

Jason had the chip lead for most of day 1 and a good part of day 2. He was confidently taking down and controlling each table he was at. Let's just say he was scary good.

Bubble broke on day 2 when a player was knocked out in 28th place leaving the top 27 to whack up the $260,000 prize pool. Everyone was impressed with the turnout and the structure. After Level 11, blind levels lasted a full hour. Players showed off their skills which resulted in several pros seated at the final table which included: Jon Lynch, Barbara Rogers, William Frymer, Andrew Egan, Steven Shankman, Richard Marshall, Avraham Lipman, Jon Buglion, Jake Toole, and Jason Min.

At the start of the final table Avraham Lipman had 140,000 vs. Jake Toole's 800,000 and Jason Min's 850,000. So how did our amateur take out both of these seasoned pros?

Before we get to the final three, congratulations to Barbara Rogers who was our Last Woman Standing. She finished in 8th place earning $7,566.

After Lipman won a couple key showdowns and built his stack, the hand of the tournament, maybe of the entire series, had Min and Lipman getting all of their 3.6 million chips onto to the felt pre-flop. Keep in mind there were only 3.9 million chips slated for the entire tournament.

Both players tabled red A-K suited. Lipman hit runner-runner diamond-diamond for the monster scoop sending Jason Min home in 3rd Place for $23,959.

That made poker pro Jake Toole very happy since he was then guaranteed at least 2nd place money in the amount of $41,613. Heads up lasted around 20 hands. Jake went all-in for the first time in his entire tournament and his A-2 failed to hold up against Avraham's 6-6.

$41,613 2nd place for Toole.

But once again the big winner was Avraham Lipman who works for a medical supply company in University, OH and is considering turning pro. Avraham will be taking home the $70,614 first place prize in time for Thanksgiving, which he'll be spending at his Mother's.

Another exciting tournament with big named players and big cash prize payouts has concluded.