Poker History for Borgata Open Champ: Gavin Griffin

What a week it has been at the WPT Borgata Winter Open. 507 poker players started the event, each with hopes of winning the title, the $1,401,109 first place prize, a Tag Heuer watch and a customized Harley Davidson motorcycle. Now, there were six players left and history was about to be made.

When the televised final table began, Gavin Griffin and David Tran seem to have a healthy advantage with their chip counts. Each had over 5 million in chips and less than 170,000 chips separated them and they had nearly a 2-1 chip lead on third place.

This 2008 Borgata WPT televised final table consisted of:

Seat 1 — Lee Watkinson — 397,000
Seat 2 — Noah Schwartz — 1,320,000
Seat 3 — Ervin Prifti — 289,000
Seat 4 — Gavin Griffin — 5,105,000
Seat 5 — Thomas Hare — 2,851,000
Seat 6 — David Tran — 5,271,000

This final table went out exactly in order of the chip count. Ervin Prifti was short stacked coming in and was first to be taking out. That left Lee Watkinson as the short stack, and he went out in fifth. Next was Noah Schwartz in fourth and Thomas Hare, leaving in third.

There were two big confrontations between Griffin and Tran, both of which were won by Gavin Griffin. The first big pot was interesting because after several re-raises and the pot being over a million chips Tran folded without seeing a flop. That pot gave Griffin the chip lead however, the lead still switched between the two players a few times before it got down to heads up.

As predicted the last two going into heads up play would be David Tran and Gavin Griffin. Tran had a 2 million chip lead over Griffin win play started. After about a dozen hands, Tran lost a huge pot slipping to just under 2 million in chips and putting Griffin in a commanding lead with 13 million. A few hands later, Tran lost another and fell under a million chips and from there Griffin coasted to the title and history.

In winning this WPT event, Gavin Griffin not only earned $1,401,109, a Tag Heuer watch and the Harley Davidson motorcycle but he also becomes the first player to win a WPT title, EPT title and a WSOP bracelet.

2008 Borgata Winter Open Final Results:

1) Gavin Griffin – $1.401.109
2) David Tran – $737.685
3) Thomas Hare – $381.137
4) Noah Schwartz – $331.958
5) Lee Watkinson – $282.779
6) Ervin Prifti – $233.600

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