Everything happened so fast we had a hard time keeping up. In three hands we back and forth from Busquet being the chip lead, to Brown holding a 3 to 1 lead again, all the way back to Busquet holding a slight edge.
The last movement was when Busquet got to a flop with heavy raises pre and decided to come over the top of Brown. Brown folded bringing them just about even. With a pre flop raise from the button, Brown folded on the next hand and Busquet had just about a million chip lead.
On the next hand, Brown raised and Busquet called pre. the flop came [4c 4s 3c]. Brown insta shoved and Busquet almost snap called. They opened up and Brown showed 2s 5s for an open ended straight draw, and Busquet showed Ac 4d for trips with an Ace kicker.
The crowd was on it's feet and awaiting a turn card. When it came the room went silent. The card was a [7s], giving Brown more outs than made Busquet and his fans a little less comfortable.
The river brought a [5c] which sent most of the room in limbo not really being able to calculate whether or not the card was good or bad. But Tab told the tale and Busquet and his crew went crazy with celebration.
I spoke to Olivier after he received his award and he told me that this wasn't even supposed to happen. "I wanted to play in the Heads up tournament, but I realized that it was sold out. I was bummed and hadn't planned on coming at all but a friend of mine suggested I play. So I camed down and this was the only event I played in.
I asked him about his experience at the Borgata. "You know, it's a really good thing they do lowering the buy-ins. I don't know if it's popular among the top professionals but I will tell you that most people love it. We had 1,018 players enter and this was made available to a lot more people than just a smattering of pros. Any other tournament you find at this price point is most likely shoved out the door in two days. The Borgata offers the best structures which gives the most value. I mean, I just won $925k for a $3500 investment. And got to play a whole lot. If the structure wasn't the way it was, the final table might have been a whole different story with a whole different bunch of people.", said Olivier. "The field is a little softer as well because, well, it's a lot of players. But the line between pro and amateur has thinned a whole bunch as well. So it's unlikely you find real giant soft spots in any field. This tournament was like that."
We close out the night with the ending of the Championship Event. Other posts are coming with a video interview of Olivier, some pictures of the celebrations, and some other pics of the final table. We will also have a recap up of the entire series soon as well.
Congratulations to Olivier Busquet, Jeremy Brown, and the rest of the final table finishers in this years Borgata Poker Open WPT Championship Event.
Borgata Poker Staff with the 2009 Champion
