$3,300+$200 WPT Borgata WPO Championship
$3 Million Guaranteed
Level 40: 500,000/1,000,000/100,000
Total Entries: 1,244
Players Remaining: 1
Average Stack: 37,320,000
2018 Borgata Winter Poker Open Main Event Champion Eric Afriat
The Winter Poker Open Championship assembled a strong field with 1,244 entrants creating a prize pool of nearly $4 million. WPT Champions Club members littered the field and only one made the final table. Eric Afriat started the final table as the short stack and nine hours later, claims his second WPT title.
Afriat entered on Day 2 and spun his stack up into contention in no time.
The win moves Afriat over the $2.5 million mark in career earnings and placed him in elite company with his second World Poker Tour title. Afriat has a lot of history at Borgata dating back to 2014 when he made a deep run but came up shy of winning the WPT World Championship.
Afriat is a real estate professional from Quebec, Canada who claims poker as a recreational hobby. His play, however, continues to elude professionals and he used his aggressive style to get the better of Joseph McKeehen, Zach Gruneberg, and Justin Zaki during heads up play to win the title.
Those three players were all looking for their first BPO and WPT final table after a few previous close calls. McKeehen and Gruneberg final tabled a WPT final table at Borgata in 2016, finishing fourth and second respectively.
Local pro Michael Marder made his charge at the title but fell shy of victory in fifth place. 22-year-old Stephen Song stole the show on Day 4 and announced his presence to the poker world by taking sixth place.
Other notable pros to make Day 4 but come up shy of today’s final table include Kane Kalas, 2015 BPO Championship winner David Paredes, and WPT Champions Club member Kevin Saul.
Kalas jumped in the live stream booth to perform commentary for the final table with BorgataPoker.com pro Michael Gagliano.
Afriat wins $636,928 for first place along with the $15,000 seat into the WPT Tournament of Champions.
Congratulations to Eric Afriat for becoming the 2018 Winter Poker Open Champion.
Final Table Results:
1st: Eric Afriat – $651,928*
2nd: Justin Zaki – $434,614
3rd: Zach Gruneberg – $321,533
4th: Joe McKeehen – $240,251
5th: Michael Marder – $181,329
6th: Stephen Song – $138,254
*includes $15,000 seat to Tournament of Champions