There were 538 entrants in the first ever Borgata PocketFives Open live event in Atlantic City. The $400 buy-in tournament passed its $150,000 guarantee by $38,000 and a four-way chop around 10:30pm local time on Tuesday ended it. There was a huge Day 1B turnout on Monday that included eight bounty players.

This author went out with A-K against A-J all-in pre-flop on Day 1B and watched as fellow PocketFives Admins Cal Spearsand Adam Small (on his third or fourth bullet) dropped within an hour of me. The setting was top-notch, the staff was helpful and organized, and the tournament ran rather smoothly. Thank you to Borgata for putting on such a professional event, which brought out a host of old school PocketFivers.

Mike Barletta (pictured above) was your winner after a four-way chop and told us, “I feel pretty good. I had more than half the chips in play, but I know what can happen in tournaments, so it’s a lot better than second place money. I’m always willing to chop for a profit.” Barletta took home $34,000.

Barletta has been playing poker for a “long, long time” and added, “I’m mostly a cash player. I’m pretty much here [at Borgata] four or five days per week playing cash and I started playing tournaments about two months ago. I’ve been playing pretty well.” Barletta is from Toms River, New Jersey.

Marlboro, New Jersey’s Steve gboro780 Gross (pictured), a World Series of Poker bracelet winner and longtime PocketFiver, finished in second place and had a rather large revolving rail for much of Day 2 on Tuesday. Gross said of his willingness to deal, “I didn’t really want to deal, but it was a turbo and I was the short stack and they gave me a good deal.” Despite having the short stack, he cashed for $24,000, which was $1,000 less than second place was scheduled to make.

“I’m glad you guys invited me,” the seemingly humble man known as gboro780 said with a smile. “I love PocketFives. I’ve known the guys forever.” Gross has been part of our community since our first year in business and has $6.2 million in tracked scores, the 16th highest total of anyone on our site. He was seen at B Bar at Borgata as late as 1:00am the night before Day 2 and was the last surviving bounty.

We asked Gross to evaluate the field’s skill level. After all, he has competed in some of the highest stakes games around and plans to head to the Seminole Hard Rock shortly for a $10 million guaranteed event in that Florida casino. He responded, “I thought Day 1, it was pretty soft. By the end, everyone knew how to play. There were no soft spots by the end. I told them if they wanted to give me a good deal, I’d do it. They were willing to do it.”

Third place belonged to Justin PocketProfitsWong (pictured), another member of the New Jersey poker community, who cashed for $19,000. He said, “It’s a great feeling. I’ve wanted to go deep in one of these for a while, so I felt like I was due. The time finally came. I always come down to Borgata. It’s one of my regular casinos. I always come down for the tournaments. It’s a great place and has great structures. And I came for PocketFives since I’m a member of the site.”

Other top finishers included John Dibella, who won the 2012 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event for $1.7 million.

Borgata reported the official results, so that’s what we’re posting here:

1. Michael Barletta – $45,473
2. Steve gboro780Gross – $25,571
3. Justin PocketProfitsWong – $16,439
4. Mikhail Volfson- $13,060
5. Onofrio Reina – $10,228
6. Charles Furey – $8,402
7. John Dibella – $6,667
8. Neville Darrell – $5,206
9. Lionel Saban – $3,653

Thank you very much to everyone who came out, to Borgata for hosting, and to BorgataPoker.com for qualifying eight players.. It was quite a unique experience and an opportunity to catch up with a “who’s who” of our community over the last decade.

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