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.
