Borgata Summer Poker Open - Championship Recap

$2500 + $200 Championship NLH

Three players with a lot of Borgata success are the last three players standing, but in the end it's Tyng Low (Flushing, NY) who's on the ultimate high as the Summer Poker Open Champion. Low defeated Farid Jattin (Miami, FL) heads up to take the title and outlasted Austen Johnson (Woodsboro, MD), arguably the most dominant player of the series.

"Good, great, tremendous, fabulous," says Low, who takes home his biggest poker payday at $211,484. "It means a lot," added the 27 year old, "I've been trying to hit one like this for five years."

On a board of 5♣ 6♠ 4♣, Low flopped a straight holding 7♥ 3♥, while Jattin hit top pair and a gutshot straight flush draw with the 6♣ 2♣. But when the board bricked out, Jattin, who was the chip leader after Day 1A and Day 2, was one place away from going wire to wire in the Championship Event.

"There's nothing I could do," said Jattin, who earned $117,481 as runner-up. "The hand played itself. I'm not uspet. I expected to win, so I'm disappointed."

"I was calling red, red," said Low, who dodged a club on the turn and river to win the title. "Fortunately the right black cards came out."

Jattin, who finished third ($15,045) in the $1,000 6-max (Event 15), began the day as the chip leader and held it the entire way, until Low closed the gap by knocking out Johnson in third place.

"Anything less than first place is a disappointment," said Johnson, who got $72,845 for third place. "But I think I locked up player of the series, which all-in-all isn't a bad month."

Johnson, who was the Event 1 ($450) Deep Stack winner ($64,734), didn't decide to enter the Championship Event until Sunday when his wife gave him a Father's Day gift of "permission to win $70,000." He also took a month off from work to pursue the Summer Poker Open Leaderboard Contest, where the winner earns a $3,500 entry into the WPT Borgata Poker Open Championship in September.*

"I was first in points and figured I might as well try and run it out," said Johnson.

Day 3, the final day, began with all 36 players returning in the money including Borgata regular Mike Dentale (Brooklyn, NY) who made the final table before being eliminated in 10th place/$10,183. He was joined by Nick Frangos (Mays Landing, NJ), who has nearly $900,000 in career earnings, and finished 6th/$38,380.

The biggest surprise of the final 10 was Anthony Sivolella (Florham Park, NJ) who returned as the short stack with 25k (4 BB). After a series of double-ups he rode the short stack to 8th place/$23,107.

Rounding out the top 10 were, Paul Freedman (Seabrook, NH) 9th/$15,666, Salah Siraj (New York, NY) 7th/$30,939, Brian Altman (Longmeadow, MA) 5th/$45,430, and Andrew Klein (Ocean, NJ) 4th/$58,746.

The tournament began with 323 players putting up $807,500 and after 4 long days, including two starting days, Low is the champion. The title, money and trophy are extra special for Low after he made a run in last year's Summer Poker Open Championship with a 19th place finish ($3,736).

"I didn't think I could get this far," the soft spoken winner said after the 2010 disappointment of missing the final table despite beginning the final day with the chip lead. "I didn't think my luck was that good."

But Low has the right amount of luck and skill to take this year's title.

*Leaderboard Contest final results will be finalized after the completion of Friday's Event 52