Play Online

Runner-Up No More: Jesse Sylvia Wins the WPT Borgata Poker Open ($821,811)

Sep 23, 2016

Champion Jesse Sylvia

Jesse Sylvia is most well-known for a runner-up finish, but on Friday night, he found a better reason for poker fans to know his name. He won a WPT title.

Sylvia finished runner-up to Greg Merson in the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event. On Friday night, Sylvia took home $821,811 after besting a field of 1,179 entries in the WPT Borgata Poker Open.

Sylvia defeated Zachary Gruneberg in a heads-up battle that lasted several hours to take home his first WPT title and the second largest score of his career. Sylvia will have his name etched into the WPT Champions Cup and also earns a pair of gold Monster 24K headphones, a Hublot King Power Unico Carbon and Red watch. With the win, Sylvia also earns a seat into the season ending WPT Tournament of Champions.

While it was Sylvia who took down the title, it was Farid Jattin with the most WPT experience and an overwhelming chip lead. At the outset of the day, Jattin held just shy of half of the chips in play. This was Jattin’s third career WPT final table and second at the Borgata. Unfortunately for the Colombian pro, nothing went his way at the final table.

Jattin’s demise started early at the final table when he was on the losing end of a hand that tripled up Sylvia and gave him the jumpstart he needed. Sylvia got all in early on at the final table with pocket fours against Jattin and Simon Lam. Both players held ace-king and Sylvia’s fours held up to triple up.

WPT360™ caught the whole hand at an exclusive angle that can be found on their Facebook page. Click here to catch a look at the hand and like the page in order to see all of the updates from WPT.

After losing about half of his stack over several hands, Jattin found himself playing a big pot with Sylvia. Jattin five-bet all in with 5-4 and Sylvia called with ace-king. Sylvia’s hand held up and left Jattin on the short stack.

Jattin got the last of his chips into the middle with pocket eights against Gruneberg’s pocket aces. Gruneberg flopped an eight to leave Jattin drawing to running eights. He found an eight on the turn, but bricked the river and finished sixth for $167,492. Two years ago, Jattin finished sixth in this same event for $174,352.

Chris Limo, a local favorite, was the next player to hit the rail and was eliminated in fifth place a few hands after Jattin busted. Just like Jattin, Limo played a big pot against Sylvia and found himself on the wrong end of it. He moved all in on the turn with a double gutshot straight draw and was called by Sylvia’s set of sevens.

Limo couldn’t fill his draw on the river and Sylvia took over the chip lead from Gruneberg with four players remaining. Limo left the Borgata with an extra $207,569 for his finish. From there down to heads-up, Gruneberg and Sylvia won every significant pot.

Gruneberg eliminated both Simon Lam in fourth place and Taha Maruf in third place to get heads-up with Sylvia. Lam was short stacked most of the final table and moved all in with jack-six and was called by Gruneberg’s king-jack. Lam netted $250,970 for finishin in fourth place.

Gruneberg took half of Taruf’s stack without showdown. Two hands later, Gruneberg moved all in with ace-eight and was called by Maruf’s pocket queens. The window card was an ace and Maruf was eliminated in third place for $300,031.

That left Gruneberg and Sylvia heads-up with almost identical stacks, but it was Sylvia who took control of the heads-up match. He jumped out to a small lead right out of the gates and never relinquished the chip lead. It only took 46 hands to get to heads-up play, but it took another 80 hands before a winner would be crowned.

Over the course of the three hour heads-up battle, Sylvia won the majority of pots. He rivered a flush and won a big pot off of Gruneberg to leave Gruneberg short. He finished him off when they got all in preflop with Sylvia’s jack-four against Gruneberg’s ace-deuce. Sylvia flopped a jack and faded a flush draw to secure his place in WPT history.

Final Table Results:

1st:  Jesse Sylvia  –  $821,811*
2nd:  Zachary Gruneberg  –  $490,617
3rd:  Taha Maruf  –  $300,031
4th:  Simon Lam  –  $250,970
5th:  Chris Limo  –  $207,569
6th:  Farid Jattin  –  167,492

* First-prize amount includes a $15,000 entry into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.

Photography by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive.com

Recent Tweets @WPT