Borgata Poker Open - Season 3 - Sep 22, 2004

Star Power! In the second annual Borgata Poker Open six star studded names filled the seats of the final table. Daniel Negreanu, Phil Ivey, “Syracuse” Chris Tsiprailidis, Josh Arieh, David Williams and Brandon Moran beat out the other 296 pretenders to make it this far. $10,000 was plunked down by each participant, creating a prize pool of over $3,000,000 in the playground that is Atlantic City. In the final days of summer 2004 the temperature inside the Borgata was surly hotter than that of the beach just a mile away.

Ivey was the first player eliminated at the televised final table after his A-Q lost to Josh Arieh’s pocket threes. Moran was next to go, and then Syracuse Chris moved all-in with 5-3 against the chip leader, Daniel Negreanu. Negreanu called with A-9 and eliminated Tsipralidis, leaving only himself, Arieh and Williams.

Just a few months earlier Williams and Arieh were sitting at another final table together – at the 2006 WSOP Main Event. Williams would again outlast his counterpart after Arieh was eliminated in third place at the hand of Daniel Negreanu. The two would battle in a back and forth heads up match that saw several big hands and lead changes. In the final hand Williams caught top pair on the flop with K-6, but Daniel was loaded with pocket aces. They got all-in and the board failed to improve Williams’ hand, giving him another disappointing second place finish. After knocking out his fourth straight opponent Negreanu took down the title and the over $1,000,000 prize that accompanied it.