Gavin Griffin makes poker history in Atlantic City
February 2, 2008
Poker history was made at the Borgata Casino last night as one of the brightest stars in the game won the 2008 Borgata Poker Classic.
Gavin Griffin had already been victorious in the 2007 Grand Final of the European Poker Tour and had won a World Series of Poker bracelet for pot-limit hold’em (2004). However, when he won his first World Poker Tour Title by topping the field in Atlantic City last night he became the only player in poker to hold a title in all three of the major tours.
Going into the final table Griffin was only narrowly behind chip leader, David Tran although that soon changed within a dozen hands being played. When Griffin raised Tran under the gun, Tran responded by re-raising to 475,000. Griffin wasn’t finished though and made a further re-raise to 1.5million which forced Tran to have a serious think. After more than a minute, the man from El Monte, California mucked his hand leaving Griffin to pick up a pot worth over a million in chips.
The opening stages of the final table were great to watch. Play was fast and furious with large numbers of chips swapping sides of the table on a regular basis. The initial short stack (Ervin Prifti) went out after only five hands and when Lee Watkinson finished in 5th place ($282,779) having thrown all his chips into the middle three times already, play seemed to calm down a bit.
By this time Tran had built up a fairly impressive chip lead again with Thomas Hare, Griffin and Noah Schwartz all sharing roughly the same number of chips. Tran really started to show championship credentials when he won a pot worth 2.1 million from Griffin and soon followed that up with a significant win a few hands later when he got help from the flop to beat Schwartz’s 9 9 with his own KK. This was the hand that eliminated Schwartz from the tournament in fourth place with a cheque for $331,958.
With only three players left, Griffin went to work reeling in Tran’s huge chip lead. He managed to double up through Thomas Hare leaving the player from Haverford crippled. He was eliminated the next hand when his K3 was dominated by Griffin’s KQ. His third place finish earned him $381,137 but the real story was that Griffin had managed to get his hands on enough chips to allow him to compete in the heads-up play.
And compete he did. Three hands later he picked up a pot worth $4.2m dollars to take the chip lead out of Tran’s hands for only the second time that night. It was a particularly ballsy play with Griffin throwing all his chips into the middle of the table on the turn and forcing his opponent to fold.
It was the momentum that Griffin needed. Tran briefly got the chip lead back, but the tournament hit a major turning point after 83 hands. Tran went all in with a pair of nine. After a quick think, Griffin called him and turned over A Q. The flop came Q 8 8, leaving Tran praying for a 9 from the remaining two cards. It wasn’t to be though with the turn and the river bringing a 7 and a 5 which allowed Griffin to build a stack with over 13 million.
To credit David Tran though, he never went away. Having been dealt pocket rockets he was able to double up again and his stack rose to 4.73 million when a 10 arrived on the river enabling him to topple Griffin’s K Q.
But with the chip lead he had, you sensed it was only a matter of time before Griffin got his hands on the title. The final hand of the evening dealt Tran K 8 and his opponent Q J. Again Tran announced an all in raise which was called by Griffin. The board came up A 9 8 Q 10 giving Griffin the help he needed to get his hands on the tournament title, but more importantly affording him the status of the only poker player on the planet to have completed the “Triple Crown”.
His winnings for the tournament amounted to $737,685 ($25,000 of which was entry into the WPT World Championship) and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. David Tran’s prize for second place was an impressive $737,685.
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