The Borgata summer open wrapped up its championship event Tuesday with the win going to a regular Borgata player, Billy O’Neil of College Park Md. O’Neil win $180,595.

“It’s fantastic,” O’Neil tells the Borgata. “I got real lucky, what can I say.”

Second place goes to Mirza Nagji, who wins $104,620.

On the final hand, Nagji bet 550K on a board of 2 of hearts, 4 and 7 of clubs and 6 and 8 of diamonds. O’Neil re-raised to 2 million, putting Nagji all-in. After a short pause, Nagji called only to see O’Neil’s King and 5 of clubs gave him the straight and the championship.

“I wouldn’t have called that last bet,” Nagji said, saying he had Jack, seven on the last hand. “Either he had the straight or he didn’t. Up until the eight came out, I had top pair.”

Nagji, it should be noted, has a cash at The World Series of Poker main event. He finished 339^th in 2008, good for  about $32,000.

The $2,000 buy-in championship tournament began with 321 players and had a total prize pool of $642,000.

We’ve noted several times that with the WSOP underway in Vegas, the summer open was left wide open for local players. O’Neil’s win brought a lot of congratulations from the Borgata staff that knows him well.

“It’s great, fantastic,” said O’Neil. “It’s nice when somebody who plays here regularly wins any of these tournaments, ever.”

O'Neil and trophy

Here’s the final table results:
1. Billy O’Neil,$ 180,595
2. Mirza Nagji, $ 104,620
3. Todd Geddis, $ 51,687
4. Mike Melkersen $ 43,592
5. Steven Curtin $ 37,364
6. John Borzio $ 31,137
7. Frank Dellaria $ 24,910
8. Dean Potashner $ 18,683
9. Ed Corrado $ 12,456
10. Joshua Hakakian $ 8,096

For a full rundown on the open, which wraps up today, go here.

And here’s O’Neil on his win

The Borgata Summer Open Championship event has made it to a final table, with play resuming today (June 29) at 11am. Ten players are left competing for the $180,595 top cash.

Steven Curtin of Charlotte, NC is the chip leader going into today’s action with nearly $1.5 million in chips. Curtin also had a first place finish at the Borgata Winter Open in a No Limit Tournament, making about $26,000.

Chip leader Curtin

Here’s the final table:

1. Frank Dellaria 756k
2. Dean Potashner 1.09 million
3. Joshua Hakakian 243k
4. Mirza Nagji 1.136 million
5. Ed Corrado 1.349 million
6. Billy O’Neil 1.247 million
7. Michael Melkersen 429k
8. John Borzio 686k
9. Todd Geddis 1.324 million
10. Steven Curtin 1.459 million

Just a couple tidbits from the World Series of Poker in Monday headlines this week.

Seidel

After Sunday’s opening play in the WSOP Tournament of Champions, Eric Seidel has the chip lead with about $72,000 in chips. Johnny Chan (71,325) and Mike Matusow (70,575) finished behind Seidel, while Barry Greenstein (56,775) and Joe Hachem (55,650) also managed to finish the day with big chip stacks.

Phil Ivey, was one of five player to bust out on the first day. Day 2 should be getting underway any minute.

Meanwhile, Gavin Smith, considered the best pro to never win a WSOP bracelet, now has one. Smith won a $2,500 Mixed Hold’em championship to earn $268,238 and his first WSOP bracelet on Saturday night.

Smith, sometimes affectionately called Birdguts, is an East Coast pro who started his career playing major events in Atlantic City and at Foxwoods. He had a seventh place finish at The East Coast Championship at The Borgata Spring Open in April (about a $19,500 cash).

Success hasn’t come at WSOP or WSOP Circuit events for Smith, however, and even this year it was touch and go.

Smith at the East Coast Championship

“I seem to be pretty good at screwing things up,” Smith said following the victory. “In the past, I sometimes went out and got drunk or hung out. But this year, I decided to come in and try to play my best the whole time. I came in and the first several events I kept getting my teeth kicked in. I was playing well. I was playing my best. But I wasn’t seeing the results.”

“And then when I cashed in the Heads-Up that helped,” he says. “Then, the last three days everything just clicked. I played well and things went well and everything clicked at the right time.”

“I’ve been in this game a long, long, long, long time.  Basically, a while ago, I used to go on tilt.  Now, I try to think of the goal.  Anything worth having is worth also going through a few adversities.  You are always going to have peaks and valleys.  Some people do not always do well dealing with the valleys and the people that don’t – don’t win.  I tried to learn from that.”

Coincidentally, two New Jersey players also made the final table, Timothy Finne of Fanwood came in third ($110,324) and Michael Michnik of Voorhees was fourth ($81,871).

Despite the World Series of Poker being underway, The Borgata Summer Open has brought some welcome action into Atlantic City and its championship event, which began Friday, has drawn a pretty respectable field.

The championship attracted 321 players and has a prize pool of $642,000, easily outdistancing the $500,000 guarantee. The event has a $2,000 + $200 buy in.

Still, The Borgata’s Spring Open championship event attracted 383 players for a higher buy-in of $3,300 and the summer open has not seen many name pros in the poker room.

But for local players and regional pros, the action has been pretty good.

Going into today’s Day 3 action, 48 players remain in the championship, competing for an about $180,000 top prize.

According to The Borgata, “The chip lead exchanged hands throughout Day 2 with no less than a half dozen players holding the top spot, but nobody finished with a monster stack. When the dust settled, it was Tyng Low (Queens, NY) leading the way with 567,900, as 13 players have more than 300k.” The top 36 players cash in the event. Play resumes at 11am today (June 28).

Low

Here are the chip leaders:

1. Tyng Low 567,900
2. Mike Melkerson 526,800
3. Jim Ostrander 474,800
4. Daniel Fischer 452,400
5. Jay Johnson 435,000
6. Dean Potashner 416,400
6. Todd Geddis 409,000
7. Ed Corrado 315,000
8. Josh Speigelman 379,100
9. Jia Liu 337,100
10. Sean Knitter 312,900

The Borgata Summer Open Championship got underway today (June 25) with 109 players buying into the $500,000 guaranteed, $2,000 + $200 No Limit event. Day IB is Saturday at 11 am.

Borgata Championship first day action

The World Series of Poker has continued to keep big name pros out of the tournament, so the championship event remains a great place for locals to stake a poker claim. Expect a big turnout for the Saturday day one session.

Meanwhile, Billy’s Poker Room at Bally’s continues to see its bad beat jackpot slowly climbing. As of 3pm Friday, it sat at $305,763.

That’s only about a $13,000 climb from last week, so the type of bad beat mania that was recently seen at the Taj Mahal is a long way off. Bally’s 20-table room, plus it’s unique split which pays 50 percent of the jackpot to all the players in the room, not just to player’s at the table where the bad beat hits, makes for a slow climb for the jackpot. Still, the loser of the bad beat gets 30 percent, or roughly $90,000.

We could live with that.

Phil Helmuth missed his shot at a 12^th World Series of Poker bracelet when he took seventh place in a $1,500 buy-in Pot-Limit Omaha High-Low Split championship.

Helmuth

Despite not taking the bracelet, Helmuth added to his already impressive WSOP record by cashing for the 78th time at the WSOP, which ranks first on the all-time cashes list.  Helmuth won $30,633. He remains ten in-the-money finishes ahead of Men “the Master” Nguyen, who holds second-place. Chris Ferguson also cashed in the event for the 62^nd time. He’s third on the all-time list.

Hellmuth also made his 41st career final table appearance.  This ranks first in the all-time rankings — two ahead of Nguyen and three ahead of T.J. Cloutier, according to the WSOP.

You might notice that Phil Ivey isn’t mentioned in those lists. Despite winning his eighth bracelet earlier this week, he’s got a ways to go to catch Helmuth.

Brit Steve Jelinek, won the event for his first bracelet and is the fifth British player to win an event at the WSOP.

Helmuth recently played poker at Harrah’s Resort in A.C. with George Stephanopoulis and Annie Duke for Good Morning America. And he won. Read the story here.

Just a quick reminder, the championship event of the Borgata Summer Open begins with Day 1A action at 11am Friday (June 25). The $2,000 + 4200 No Limit Tournament carries a $500,000 guaranteed prize pool.

Day 1B starts Saturday at 11am. On site registration is in the Borgata Poker Room.

It’s official. Phil Ivey is a superstar.

When the Hold’em craze started in 2003, the game had some ready-made stars such as Phil Helmuth and Doyle Brunson, but at his point, nobody can touch Ivey. Since he won his eighth WSOP bracelet Tuesday, the poker world is simply bowing down to the king.

Kind of like we are.

So here’s a nice interview with Ivey from PokerListings.com. Phil still isn’t exactly a fount of quotes, but here’s a nice one: “It’s the World Series of Poker, and I enjoy playing tournaments. I enjoy winning bracelets. As I’m getting older I’m realizing my place in poker history.”

You and everybody else.

Phil says he’s having fun chasing Helmuth for the all-time bracelet lead. Helmuth, coincidentally, is chasing his 12^th bracelet today (June 24) in a $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Low Split-8 or Better at the WSOP where he’s one of the final 15.

And finally, here’s a clip of Ivey before his win Tuesday from Poker Road, which mentions, believe it or not, a decidedly South Jersey twist of Ivey not liking to wear socks. Wherever you go, the sand stays in your shoes.

Female poker players have been making some deep runs in a few of the Borgata Summer Open’s various events, but it’s Torpekay Habashzada of Broomhall Pa. who broke the glass ceiling.

Habashzada

Habashzada won the $500 + $60 Deepstack No Limit event that started Sunday. She takes home $67,877 and scores her first tournament win.

More impressive, her win can give her some bragging rights with her husband Sirous Jamshidi, who has more than $1.7 million in career tournament winnings, including four cashes at the Borgata Winter Open this year.

Jamshidi’s largest A.C. cash was a second place finish in the winter open championship, where he lost heads-up to pro Jeff Madsen. That payed him about $368,000.

He also had a 16^th place finish at the 2006 WSOP main event, a nearly $660,000 cash.

But despite that, he has never had an A.C. win, though now his wife does.

“It’s so good, my first real tournament and I can’t believe I did this well,” Habashzada told The Borgata.

Jamshidi wasn’t in town for the open (presumably he’s at the WSOP), but Habashzada says, “He knows how I’m doing and he’s very proud of me.”

Habashzada earned the nickname The Torpedo during the tournament, knocking out six of the final eight players. She won the final hand with a king high flush.

Jerry Brown on Philly takes second and $36,671. Read The Borgata’s account here.

Oh, and our favorite from a previous post, Paul Rambo of New Castle De., finished out of the money, proving that Sylvester Stallone pics aren’t lucky for anyone.

This blog doesn’t really have that big a man-crush on Phil Ivey, even though he learned his trade in our backyard at A.C. gambling tables (We think of it as a moderate man-crush). But it’s just impossible to ignore the guy as his legend grows, including his latest accomplishment, the winning of an eighth World Series of Poker bracelet Monday when he took first in a $3,000 H.O.R.S.E. event.

We're too cheap to buy a WSOP photo

It’s Ivey’s third bracelet in two years and ties him for fifth on the all-time bracelet list with Eric Seidel.  He’s still behind Phil Hellmuth (eleven), Doyle Brunson (ten), Johnny Chan (ten), and Johnny Moss (nine), though he seems likely to catch all of them the way he’s playing.

In fact, Ivey feels he can get 30 before he’s done, saying “It’s within reach as long as people keep betting me on these bracelet bets.  I’m sure I can reach it one day if I keep playing and stay healthy.  I think I can reach it.”

Ah the bracelet bets. Ivey is thought to be one of the most active pros in placing side bets on bracelet wins. One that went public was with Howard Lederer.

According to some reports, Ivey bet Lederer $5 million that he would win at least two WSOP bracelets in 2010 and 2011 combined. That’s a little different than the report we first heard back in April, which had Lederer betting that Ivey would be shut out for two years. So, Ivey is only half way to winning the bet.

"Gulp'

Of course the details are really between Lederer and Ivey and there’s no way to know how many other bets Ivey has unless he discusses them.

And it should be noted that the H.O.R.S.E. win brought Ivey $329,840, which in the money stratosphere he live in, really pales next to these side bets.

The win set off a bunch of tweets (which we lifted from ESPN.com) from pros including:

• Doyle Brunson: “#8 for Ivey? Wow! I’m pretty hard headed about players being great but I finally have to admit he is the best all around player.”
• Daniel Negreanu: “Phil Ivey is the best male poker player in the world in my opinion. Pretty impressive.”
• Erik Seidel: “Congrats to Phil Ivey, The Magic Man on #8. He continues to leave no doubt who the best player in the world is. Truly amazing!”
• Phil Hellmuth: “Amazing win Phil Ivey: bracelet no 8, congrats!”

And then came a tweet from Lederer himself, which simply read “… gulp.”