Level 37 (250,000/500,000/50,000)
Total Entries: 989
Players Remaining: 1
Chip Average: 29,000,000
Aaron Mermelstein – $3,000,000 GTD WPT WPO Champion
The last time the Borgata Poker blog was at a Final Table with Aaron Mermelstien, it was during the Fall Poker Open, covering his first ever outright live major poker victory.
That event and Final Table went late into the early morning hours, with play ending nearly 20 hours after it started as Mermelstein outlasted a massive field to win the $100,000 GTD ‘Deep Stack’ Event 11, where he’d take home just under $40,000, his biggest tournament score to date.
While the setting and the logistics of this WPT Winter Poker Open Championship Final Table might have been drastically different, the outcome was not, as Mermelstein would win his second major title, putting his name on the WPT Champion’s Cup and earning himself just over $712,000.
Mike Sexton might have said it best in his closing statement, “Aaron was the most poised and aggressive player at this Final Table” battling through the peaks and valleys, literally and figuratively, as there were so many swings and lead changes throughout the entire Day 5 session.
For those keeping track of the action, and for those that weren’t, there were 17 chip lead changes through this Final Table and almost a dozen short stack survivals and Mermelstein battled through it all.
For a Final Table that had so many swings and changes, Mermelstein always seemed ahead of the curve, never finding himself all-in and at risk during Day 4 or at this Final Table.
Mermelstein would almost be at a loss for words when the post-Champoinship interviews began, still catching his breath from getting mauled by his friends and families celebrating the championship, but he would say that this moment “was a dream come true, that he’d always know he’d get to this stage at some point, he just didn’t know when.”
He won’t have to wait any longer, as he is now one of poker’s elite after winning the WPT Winter Poker Open Championship.
This post has been timestamped so it is on the front of the WPO blog, to recap the action from only the WPT WPO Championship click HERE.