Event 20 Recap

$260 + $40 Big Stack NLH (Re-Entry) 

Doug Pinto (Princeton, NJ) had his arm twisted to come to the Borgata Summer Poker Open and he's glad he finally gave in.  Pinto defeated Leo Goldberger (Brooklyn, NY) heads up to win the penultimate event of the series and $12,636.

"After all the texts, emails and phone calls I decided to play," said Pinto who gave credit to friend Steve Coppola (Staten Island, NY) for convincing him to come along.  "I didn't want him to be alone," joked Pinto who was glad for Coppola's support on the rail after he busted early in the day.

The pivotal heads up hand came when Pinto and Goldberger were nearly dead even in chips and Pinto out flopped Goldberger's pocket jacks with K 8.  A few hands later, Pinto won the tournament with Q♥ 2♠ vs Goldberger's pocket 2s when the board double paired and Pinto's queen kicker was best.

"I got a little unlucky at the end," said Goldberger, "but overall I played very, very good."

Borgata trophy winner James Sloat came to the final table with the chip lead and rode it to a third place finish.  "I had to make some tough lay downs," said Sloat, who won a Deep Stack in April's Spring Poker Open for $34,000.  "I don't like calling off against another big stack," he said.

After the money bubble broke, it only took one hour to go from 18 to seven players as the eliminations were fast and furious.  Borgata regular Rob Saladin came in 15th place ($737), while familiar face Matt Piccolo finished 5th. 

The 167 entries featured the Miller brothers, Borgata regular Eric and his brother Gregg, who finished in 7th place.  Others who contributed to the $43,420 total buy-in included Jason Warriner
Andrew Interdonato and Borgata three time trophy winner Howard Wolper.

"This is my first official Borgata win with a trophy," said Pinto, who was all smiles.  "I need to unwind and then be back in the morning. I want to go back-to-back."

No arm twisting this time for Pinto who said he and Coppola will be playing in Friday's final event of the Summer Open.

Final Table Results

Position-Name-Amount

1 Doug Pinto (Princeton, NJ) $12,636
2 Leo Goldberger (Brooklyn, NY) $6,949
3 James Sloat (Halethorpe, MD)$4,001
4 Stan Zavoyskiy (Brooklyn, NY) $3,369
5 Matt Piccolo (Dumont, NJ) $2,527
6 Frank DiRe (Columbus, NJ) $2,106
7 Gregg Miller (Marlboro, NJ) $1,685
8 Peter Baracks (Setauket, NY) $1,264
9 Patrick Nestor (Jersey City, NJ) $948
10 Dan DeMeo (Ballston Lake, NY) $842