Finance Professional Wins $842,379 In Atlantic City
February 5, 2014 12:53 pmDespite entering a huge 1,229 player field packed with talent at the 2014 WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open Main Event, it was amateur player Anthony Merulla who eventually overcame final opponent David Paredes heads-up to claim the trophy, as well as the $842,379 top prize.
Following his impressive win in Atlantic City, the 39-year old finance professional commented: “I know (Paredes) has an edge on me heads-up. I thing I’ve got a little bit better at recognizing when people are better than me. I used to play online heads-up and I felt fairly comfortable playing heads-up. I’ve just played my game, ran pretty well in some spots and was able to beat him one time.”
The $3,500 buy-in Main Event created a prize pool worth $3,934,029, and amongst the notable players cashing in at the event, but falling short of a final table appearance were such pros as Andy Frankenberger in 118th ($6,739), Daniel O’Brien in 80th ($7,758), Matt Affleck in 65th ($8,424), John Racener in 38th ($13,125), John D’Agostino in 30th ($15,084), Chad Brown in 26th ($17,357), and Faraz Jaka in 22nd ($17,357).
By the time the final table had been reached, Anthony Merulla was the second shortest stack out of the remaining six players. However, Merulla (Qd-Qh) then won a three-way all-in pot against Jared Jaffee (10h-10s) and Farid Jattin (Kc-Ks) to eliminate Jattin in 6th ($174,352), whilst boosting his chip stack.
Merulla (A-8) followed up by dispatching a short-stacked Jared Jaffee (K-J) to the rail in 4th ($258,590), and after Merulla (A-6) did likewise to Anthony Maio (Q-Q) in 3rd ($307,565), the heads-up battle got underway between Paredes on a 20,495,000 stack and Merulla with 16,175,000 in chips.
The marathon heads-up battle subsequently lasted almost 100 hands before the defining hand was played with Merulla (Q-3) and Paredes (Q-8) all-in on a 6-3-Q flop. A 7 and 4 on turn and river did nothing to alter things, and so David Paredes had to be satisfied with a runner-up finish worth $499,549, while Anthony Merulla was crowned the 2014 WPT Borgata Winter Poker champiion.
Final Table results:
1 Anthony Merulla $842,379
2 David Paredes $499,549
3 Anthony Maio $307,565
4 Jared Jaffee $258,590
5 Mezheritsky $213,650
6 Farid Jattin $174,352