Guo Liang Chen Wins 2017 WPT Borgata Poker Open For $789,058

It was the victory of a lifetime for Virginia-based pro Guo Liang Chen when he took down the WPT Borgata Poker Open for a $789,058 payday, dwarfing his previous best cash of $13,858 and vowing to fall asleep with the huge windfall!

A field of 1132 hopefuls had descended on the Borgata for the season 16 $3500 buy-in event, leading to a mixed set of players at the 6-man final table, chief among them the 2016 WSOP Main Event November NinerCliff Josephy.

In fact Josephy was the only player to enter the final table shorter stacked than Chen, but there was to be no miracle comeback for the New Yorker, eventually falling in 5th spot when New Jersey firefighter Gregory Weber spiked a jack on the flop to dismiss Josephy.

By this time Chinese-born Chen had worked his stack up to join the leader, but again it was Weber who would trim the field down to three, his big slick dominating Matt Parry’s AQ, another king on the flop all but sealing his fate.

When Jia Liu fell at Chen’s hands shortly afterwards it left Chen and Weber to battle it out for the title and the lion’s share of what had been a guarantee-busting $3,623,532 prizepool, a third of that ready to be divvied up by the leading pair.

Portsmouth-based  Chen fought back from a 2-to-1 chip disadvantage and gradually took over the heads-up match, finally forcing Weber to shove with K♥ 9♠ only to see Chen’s A♥ K♦ hit the felt in front of him and when the board failed to help Weber it was all over, Chen being crowned the champion while his tough opponent walked off with $471,059.

Afterwards he told WPT reporters:

“I was too excited to sleep last night, but I’m going to fall asleep tonight with cash in hand!”