Jason Nguyen Fulfills Promise and Wins Borgata Fall Poker Open Kickoff for $126,727

Jason Nguyen hails from here in Atlantic City. For him, the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa is a poker mecca, a place that holds special meaning and is a symbol for players up and down the East Coast. He made a promise to himself this year that he was finally going to triumph here and take home a trophy he so dearly coveted. And today at the final table of the Borgata Fall Poker Open $600 Kickoff, he achieved that dream.

Nguyen defeated Canada’s Sebastian Crema heads-up to prevail over the massive 1,862-entry field and take home the $126,727 top prize after the final three players agreed to a chop. When he caught a lucky four on the turn to take the lead on the last hand, his dream had become reality. His promise had been fulfilled.

“It means the whole world, to be honest. I told myself at the beginning of this year—I first started playing tournaments more seriously this year—that I want to win a trophy here at Borgata. The Borgata is something in poker,” he said.

Borgata Fall Poker Open $600 Kickoff Final Table Results

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“I told everybody, all my friends and family, and they supported me. They were all rooting for me, saying you are going to win a trophy one day. The feeling is still surreal to me. I felt like I was going to win one, but I didn’t think it would come this soon. My biggest score was early this year during the Winter Open, and before the year ended I knocked out a goal. I feel happy, excited, thrilled.”

Nguyen finished second in a Progressive Bounty event at the Borgata Winter Open in January for $76,000, his previous biggest score. He came into this event with total live earnings of around $170,000, according to The Hendon Mob. The last few months hadn’t been going well for him on the felt, but this result more than made up for it.

“Six figures. It means a lot. Especially the last couple of months, I’ve been having a downswing, a pretty bad downswing,” he said. “Overall, I felt pretty confident in my game. Stay focused, pick my spots. Apply pressure to certain players who were more capable of folding. Heads-up against Sebastian here, the most experienced player at the table, I knew once he got short-stacked I could have a big edge and take the win.”

Final Table Action

Nguyen came into the final table in the middle of the pack with 3,850,000, while Crema stood atop the leaderboard with 15,525,000. Table short-stack Nicholas Cassese found a jack on the river to double up off James Calderaro on the third hand of the day, while Spyros Malkotsis left Thomas Yarbrough short after accidentally revealing his queens too early. Rick Zhou folded to two shoves before finally running into Malkotsis’ flush to become the first casualty.

Yarbrough soon followed in eighth place after Nguyen flopped top pair with king-queen. Malkotsis, who qualified for this event for just $80, took over the chip lead but plummeted down the leaderboard after Nguyen shoved the river in a big pot.

Chadd Beatty survived two big coin flips to double up twice, while Malkotsis was then all in with ace-seven and looking to improve against Nguyen’s eights. The board offered no help, and he was sent to the rail in seventh place. Calderaro then had his jacks cracked by Crema’s rivered straight to bust in sixth place as Crema moved back on top.

Nguyen won a flip with ace-king against Cassese’s deuces to double up, and he then spiked two pair to take the rest from Cassese and send him out in fifth place to move up past 20,000,000. Crema picked off a bluff from Nguyen, and then shoved on Jason Simone with a flush. Simone, who was down to just one-sixth of a big blind at one point yesterday, called off his last 6,000,000 with trips to have his chip-and-a-chair story come to an end with a fourth-place finish.

The three remaining players then agreed to a deal, with Crema taking $115,171, Nguyen $106,727, and Beatty $97,471. The second-place finisher would receive an additional $10,000, while the champion would earn $20,000. Beatty fell in third place, running his king-six into Crema’s king-queen to set up the heads-up match. Nguyen began with a 34,000,000 to 21,000,000 lead over Crema before a hand that Nguyen later admitted felt like the turning point of the day.

Nguyen Agonizes Over a Hero Call

Nguyen fired out bets on the flop and turn before checking over to Crema on the river. Crema then bet 6,800,000, and Nguyen went deep into the tank. He eventually folded after several minutes, and Crema showed ten-high for a bluff. “I swear to God, I almost called with jack-high,” Nguyen said.

It was a spot that had the chance to haunt Nguyen if he couldn’t come back to win. “The jack-high hand, he was down to, like, 15 bigs, and he made a sick all in on the river. I tanked for so, so long. I was really going to call if off with jack-high. I was going to end up beating myself into the wall. If I ended up losing this tournament, I would always think back on that hand. That was the turning point of the whole tournament,” he said.

Nguyen then earned two double ups, first finding ace-king in the big blind against Crema’s ace-deuce, then turning the nut straight for another double up. He was all in again for 20,000,000 but found himself behind this time with jack-seven against Crema’s eights. The turn brought a jack, however, and he stormed back into the lead. A few hands later, Crema called for his last 10,500,000 with a flush draw, while Nguyen had a straight draw. Nguyen hit a pair of fours on the turn, and Crema couldn’t catch up on the river.

Nguyen finally got to lift the trophy he had spent the past year dreaming of. But his job isn’t finished. The Fall Poker Open rolls on for the next ten days, and Nguyen is ready to go after another one. “Super confident. I’m just going to keep playing my game, stay level-headed, celebrate a little bit, have fun. Work hard, play hard,” he said.

That concludes PokerNews‘ coverage of the $600 Kickoff. Stay tuned for more updates throughout the Borgata Fall Poker Open.