Borgata Poker Open - Mark Newhouse Becomes Poker's Newest Made Man

The World Poker Tour … Jersey style.



For better or worse, most people don't associate New Jersey, home of Tony Soprano and Bon Jovi, with the word "subtle." So, no one seemed too surprised when they walked into the Borgata Events Center, site of the 2006 Borgata Poker Open, and found a lighting and stage setup that put most other WPT venues to shame and rivaled even the World Series of Poker's main-event production.



Not quite as big as the WSOP's "poker hangar," the Events Center still provided a massive space to host a tournament. Music played over the PA system. Spotlights shot Red Bull, Budweiser, and other corporate sponsor logos, along with the WPT emblem, onto the walls.



At least for the first day, the Borgata Babes, a team of scantily clad models, walked between the tables with giant cards displaying the exact level of tournament play (a la ring girls at a boxing match).



New Jersey might not be subtle, but at the Borgata Poker Open, with a WPT title and $1.5 million cash prize for the winner, who the heck wants subtle, anyway?



DAY ONE

EAST COAST VS. WEST COAST



Nothing puts a smile on a pro's face like the sight of chips. At the BPO, players started with $25,000 stacks. Putting people in an even better mood, the 75-minute levels began at $25-$50, a structure that favored skill and strategy over blind luck.



While the deep-stack poker was good news for the pros, the big-name players appeared especially cheerful on the first day of play.



"I look forward to this tournament and the Taj Mahal [U.S. Poker Championship], because the play is weaker here in no-limit hold'em compared to the West Coast," FullTilt's David Singer said on day one.



PokerStars' Barry Greenstein also admitted to being excited about the field, and expounded on poker's transcontinental differences. "Initially, the East Coast was a stud town. Their hold'em is not as strong as the West Coast."



On Sept. 15, the 2006 Borgata Poker Open, with its deep stacks and "East Coast" field, kicked off.



With no significant bust-outs during the first levels, nearly all the big names remained in contention when tournament officials announced the final numbers: 540 players, the money bubble bursting on the 55th-place elimination, and, most importantly, a $1,519,020 first-place cash prize.



With seven levels of poker to play, the deep stacks and big names began to disappear, as stars Gavin Smith, Joe Cassidy, Allen Cunningham, Ted Forrest, and John D'Agostino all exited.



At 8:28 p.m., Al Ardebili, the winner of the 2005 BPO, relinquished his title when his top two pair fell to Alan Goehring's Broadway straight. For the 248 players who bagged their chips at the close of action, Ardebili's elimination created one certainty: One of them would be the new champion of the Borgata Poker Open.



DAY TWO

MAJOR LEAGUE HITTERS



In baseball, a "meatball" is an easy pitch – right down the middle and usually crushed out of the park. For Chad Brown and Men "The Master" Nguyen, day one of the BPO was full of meatballs.



Both veteran pros entered day two in the top five, with Brown in third place ($165,000) and Nguyen fifth ($143,000). For Brown, maneuvering through a field of "weak" competition came down to following a few simple rules.



"Let me have a hand against those players, and let me extract as many chips as I can," he explained on day two. "These guys [the amateurs] are not laying their hands down. The strategy is … not to get too tricky."



As tables broke and dangerous players moved into closer proximity, Brown's strategy became more difficult to use. Mike Gracz drew a seat at table No. 10, which put him with AbsolutePoker's Sean McCabe, Men "The Master" Nguyen, FullTilt's Steve Brecher, and 2006 WSOP main-event runner-up Paul Wasicka.



While McCabe and Gracz sparred for the better part of the day (with McCabe getting the best of it), the intensity at table No. 10 spiked with the arrival of John Phan.



Phan's aggressive play and larger-than-life persona proved to be the perfect complement to the table's all-star roster. With a drink in hand and a forest of chips surrounding him, Phan tangled with every player at the table, including "The Master."



In one hand, after Nguyen took down a pot with a large raise, tensions grew when Phan fumed, "Just because you steal, doesn't mean you're a good player."



"Yesterday was a donkey shootout," McCabe said while on break from table No. 10. "Today, we're getting into big-stack poker, so the pros are in there butting heads."



Butting heads and taking each other out, indeed. By the 6:45 p.m. dinner break, fewer than 100 players remained.



Even Men "The Master" Nguyen, a top-five chip leader coming into action, and a favorite to advance, failed to survive day two.



DAY THREE

GETTING WHACKED



In six seasons, the hit HBO show The Sopranos has made a habit of unexpectedly removing characters from the storyline, aka whacking them. Day three felt a lot like an episode of The Sopranos.



At the start of play, 67 players remained. The bubble bursting with the 55th-place elimination meant 13 participants were going to walk away with nothing. Ariel Schneller was not supposed to be a part of that group.



The chip boss after days one and two, Schneller took $511,000 into day three and seemed to be a sure bet to make the money. Then, he tangled with Chad Brown. Moving all in on a Q J 8 flop, Schneller's K 10 draw put him at a disadvantage to Brown's A K draw. Both players missed with the 2 turn and 3 river. Brown's ace played, and Schneller exited the tournament in 55th place.



Like any good television drama, the plot twists didn't stop after Act 1. AbsolutePoker's Mark Seif brought the third-highest chip stack ($500,500) into day three, but a series of losses, marked by two run-ins with Jennifer Tilly, snuffed out his BPO life.



A bigger shock was Chad Brown's elimination two spots later. Unlike Seif, who had various players chip away at him, Brown's fall rested entirely in the hands of one man – Bill Blanda.



After taking half of Brown's chips with flopped quad fours, Blanda delivered the kill shot when Brown moved all in with pocket fours, and Blanda, holding pocket kings, called. One of the first players to break the $1 million chip mark, Brown departed as the 40th-place finisher ($14,142).



At 4:13 p.m., barely five hours into play, Chris Bell ended day three with his elimination of Russell Rosenblum in 28th place ($15,714).



So, how long would it take 27 players to battle it out for the six seats at the WPT televised final table? With big stacks and dangerous survivors like Jennifer Tilly, Chris Bell, and John Phan, most figured – not long at all.

DAY FOUR

NEW JERSEY'S SIX MOST WANTED … SEATS



With the Borgata Events Center the construction site for the WPT televised final-table set, the 27 remaining players gathered in a secluded alcove of the casino's poker room. Down to three tables, the action began with $6,000-$12,000 blinds and $2,000 antes.



In keeping with the BPO's draw-and-shoot pace, fans didn't need to wait long to see the day's first big elimination. The charismatic and unpredictable John Phan exited play in 26th place ($26,190) after Jennifer Tilly cracked his pocket aces with a flopped set of deuces.



With the action moved to the final two tables, Mark Newhouse wrenched control of the chip lead, and took out the last female player by eliminating Tilly. The actress turned poker pro called an all-in reraise by Newhouse on a Q turn (the flop was KJ7. Tilly's Q 7gave her two pair, but Newhouse flipped over the nut straight with the A10. The win made Tilly the 15th-place finisher ($52,380) and put Newhouse's stack over the $3 million mark.



An hour later, Newhouse turned a diamond flush to crack Bill Blanda's set of fives (12th place – $68,094), and Avdo Djokovic's pocket queens failed to hold up against Brock Parker's A-K, and the two tables were consolidated to one.



Once down to the final table, Newhouse and Chris Bell split the duties of eliminating the last four players. First to strike, Newhouse caught a four-club board while holding the 9 9 to best Parker's pocket aces (10th place – $68,094).



After laying queens down to kings against Bell on a previous hand, Shawn Chaconas became the ninth-place finisher ($104,761) when he made an all-in reraise with pocket queens, and Bell called – with pocket kings.



The 6:30 p.m. dinner break proved to be the only means of slowing Bell and Newhouse down, because as soon as the players returned, Newhouse knocked Athanasias Diakos out with pocket queens, and, six minutes later, Bell sent the BPO to the televised final table when he paired a king to top Louis Russo's pocket nines (seventh place – $209,521).



THE FINAL TABLE


The lineup for the final table read like this: Anthony Argila – an amateur player from New York; Chris Bell – a seasoned pro looking to win his first major title; Mark Newhouse – a 21-year-old limit specialist; Blaise Ingoglia – a wealthy Florida businessman; Chris McCormack – a young poker pro in the hunt for his biggest cash; David Sklansky – one of the most widely read poker authors in the world.



Six players, six different stories, one dividing goal: win a WPT title and take home the $1.5 million first-place cash prize.



The chip counts coming to the final table were as follows:

In front of a rowdy televised audience, final-table action began with $15,000-$30,000 blinds and $3,000 antes.



BLAISE INGOGLIA OUT FIRST


Ingoglia moved all in preflop with the A Q and took a big lead over Newhouse, who called with the J 8. But Newhouse, still running hot from the day before, paired his jack on the flop, then made a queen-high straight on the river. Ingoglia, playing in his first $10,000 buy-in event, earned $261,901 for his sixth-place finish.



WPT TITLE EVADES CHRIS BELL



Coming off a win in last year's Trump Classic, and a third-place finish in the 2005 Mirage Poker Showdown, Bell was one of the few players who wanted the WPT title more than the $1.5 million.



"Three of my closest friends [Gavin Smith, Erick Lindgren, and Mike Gracz] all have WPT titles," Bell said prior to the final table.



"I'd like to join that club today.



With Smith, Lindgren, and Gracz in attendance, Bell survived for more than three hours despite frequent scrapes with McCormack and Newhouse, the alternating chip bosses. But unable to drag any substantial pots, Bell hovered around the $1 million mark and eventually pushed all in over the top of a Newhouse raise. Newhouse called and showed the A 9, and Bell's A 4 never caught up. Bell took home $314,280 for fifth place. A WPT title, however, would have to wait for another day.



ANTHONY ARGILA TAKES FOURTH PLACE


For Argila, his last moments in the tournament involved two things: drawouts and Chris McCormack. Argila made his final double-up through McCormack when he made two pair with the K 6 to beat McCormack's A 4. In the next heads-up hand, however, the players swapped roles. With all of his chips in the middle, Argila flipped over the K 8, but saw his superior starting hand fall when McCormack's K 5 paired a 5 on the turn. The fourth-place finish netted Argila $366,600.



DAVID SKLANSKY

THE THIRD MAN



David Sklansky, the world-famous poker author and accomplished pro, brought more credentials to the table than any other player, but he also brought the shortest stack. He survived by doubling up a number of times, including twice through Newhouse, a frequent contributor to Sklansky's poker website, twoplustwo.com.



McCormack also doubled up Sklansky, and then busted him seven hands later. A series of reraises ended with Sklansky pushing all in for $3,250,000 and McCormack making the call. The last chapter in Sklansky's 2006 Borgata Poker Open became an easy read when McCormack flipped over the 10 10 and Sklansky showed the 5 5. McCormack closed the book (bad pun intended) by flopping a set, and Sklansky walked off the WPT set in third place ($419,040).



MARK NEWHOUSE VS. CHRIS MCCORMACK



The win over Sklansky gave McCormack a 2-to-1 chip lead going into heads-up play, and guaranteed a WPT title for another member of poker's new generation.



McCormack – who honed his game in Florida alongside the Mizrachi brothers, and the elder statesman in the heads-up battle at the ripe old age of 27 – had made a quiet march to the final table. Not yet a household name, McCormack garnered a healthy amount of respect during the tournament from both fans and players.



A young pro making his living playing limit hold'em, Newhouse emerged from the field on day four as a hyperaggressive, calculating player. Perhaps emboldened by a final-table appearance in the 2006 WSOP $3,000 limit hold'em event, Newhouse played nearly every hand during late action on day four.



He maintained his aggressive play throughout the final table, and quickly changed the dynamics of his match with McCormack.



In the first hand of heads-up action, Newhouse raised $400,000 and McCormack called. The K 8 5 flop led to an $800,000 bet by Newhouse, followed by a $3 million McCormack reraise, and capped off with Newhouse moving all in. McCormack called, and flipped over the K 7 for top pair. But Newhouse's K 5 gave him two pair, and the chip lead changed after the 4 turn and 3 river.



McCormack never recovered from the loss, and at 10:34 p.m., the 2006 Borgata Poker Open came to an end. Looking at a $4 million deficit, McCormack called an all-in raise by Newhouse preflop. The chip boss showed the Q Q and McCormack's A J needed to improve. The 10 5 4 flop helped neither player, but the 10 turn and Q river gave Newhouse a boat.



The $802,895 runner-up prize was McCormack's biggest cash of his career.



For Newhouse, $1,519,020 and a $25,000 entry into the WPT Championship, came by defeating 539 players in no-limit hold'em.



"I don't think tournament strategy is too hard to figure out," Newhouse told Card Player about winning outside of his favorite game, limit hold'em.



Judging from his success at the Borgata Poker Open, Newhouse did a little more than "figure out" no-limit hold'em tournament poker – he mastered it.