Event 9 Recap

$250 + $30 + $100 Black Chip Bounty Six-Max No Limit Hold'em (Re-Entry)

Hyper aggressive play and a quality field are two staples in any six-max tournament, but it's a newbie to the format who won Event 9 of the Borgata Fall Poker Open.

Matt Gunter (Baltimore, MD) beat Rocco Luciano (Philadelphia, PA) heads up to win the title and the trophy when his AQ held against AJ.

"It's hard to believe I actually won," said Gunter, who won $16,017 in his first six-max event. "I'm a nit in
a six-max body."

Gunter said he had "no chips" the first six levels, but when his KK busted 99 for his first $100 bounty of the tournament, he shifted gears. "You learn to adapt," said the 25-year old, who considers himself a semi-professional player.

One hand that epitomized the sheer aggression of the format came between Luciano and Gunter at the final two tables in a 1.2 million chip pot.  Both were all in with AK while holding 60 bb that resulted in a chop, but not before Luciano picked up a flush draw free roll that was for 1/3 of the chips in play.

Luciano's runner-up finish was his second final table of the series after an 8th place finish in Event 6 (Big Stack, $100k Guarantee) for $5,460.  "Back-to-back final tables, I'm playing pretty well," said Luciano, who earned 12 $100 bounties along the way, "I hope I can keep it going in the main (Championship Event)."

And while Luciano and Gunter are more seasoned players, third place finisher Pete Corda (Washington Twp. NJ) was just happy to be there. "I'm not like these guys," said Corda, a pharmacy owner, "It was a good experience," he said, "It was awesome."

The final table also featured heavy hitters Ari Engel (6th) and Joe Liberta (7th), who each have Borgata trophies, while Norm Michalek (5th) earned his 12 Borgata cash.  Rounding out the the final table was Andrew Zhu (4th).

The field featured 259 entries and total buy-ins of $64,750. Recoginzable names in the top 18 (final three tables) included Kyle Bowker (11th), Patti Haggerty (14th) and "Action" Bob Hwang (15th).

This was Hwang's second big cash of the series after his runner-up finish in Event 3 (Deep Stack $100,000 Guarantee) for $30,158. And Haggerty continues to impress with another deep run after
coming in 16th place in Event 1 ($1 Million Guarantee - 2,899 entries) for $7,213.

Cashing 24th was Joe McKeehen who won Event 7 ($450 entry) for $30,963.

But the day belonged to Gunter who admitted he was "nervous on the way over," and
decided to play after making a final table at one of the side tournaments of the series.

"I came to play the $230s (Events 6 & 8)," said Gunter, "but after the nightly (7 pm), decided to
stay and try this out."

Final Table Results  

Entries: 259
Total Buy-In: $64,750

Place-Name-Payout

1st Matt Gunter (Baltimore, MD) $16,017
2nd Rocco Luciano (Philadelphia, PA) $9,515
3rd Pete Corda (Washington Twp. NJ) $7,223
4th Andrew Zhu (S. Plainfield, NJ) $5,810
5th Norm Michalek (Westfield, NJ) $4,554
6th Ari Engel (Las Vegas, NV) $3,297
7th Joe Liberta (Berlin, NJ) $2,512