2008 Borgata Poker Champion Crowned.
Vivek Rajkumar emerged victorious from a tough television final table that featured WSOP bracelet winner and Absolute Pro Mark Seif. The 22-year old Rajkumar, also known online as “Psyduck,”entered the final 6 with the chip lead and never let it go, despite making some huge clashes with favorite Mark Seif. It was definitely clear that youth would prevail over experience this night, as Vivek meticulously picked apart his opponents all night long, and continued his stranglehold on his opponents.
Now leading up to his win, this is how the final table looked before the cameras started rolling:
Vivek Rajkumar — 6,480,000
Andrew Knee — 1,475,000
Dan Heimiller — 3,360,000J
ason Strochak — 1,650,000
Sang Kim — 3,085,000
Mark Seif — 4,665,000
Andrew Knee and Mark Seif were the first casualties of this very short evening, going out in 6th place and 5th place, respectively. Seif, who was of course the biggest threat to chip leader Vivek Rajkumar, went out when his all-in attempt with KQ was called by Psyduck’s A5 offsuit. The board didn’t improve Seif’s hand, and Vivek took the pot down with Ace-high.
The next players to go out would be Jason Strotchak and Dan Heimiller, who both earned solid paydays of $337K and $387K for their efforts. Their exits to the rail would set up heads up action between the young online player Rajkumar and the older Sang Kim. As I mentioned before, youth was definitely serving up the pwnage on this night, and it would literally be only 7 hands into heads-up play before this match would be decided.
On the final hand, it would become a pre-flop raising war between Kim and Rajkumar, each battling back at each other’s raises before it eventually just got all in. Sang Kim’s A Q would have Vivek’s A J seemingly dominated as they flipped up their cards before a rowdy and youthful crowd. However, Kim’s domination would be short-lived as a Jack hit on a flop of J - T - 7. The rail would go completely insane after the flop, and it was up to the turn and river to reverse Vivek’s graceful fortune. However, for Kim, his fortune would run out as the turn and river bricked out, giving the WPT Borgata Poker Open title to barely-legal Vivek Rajkumar!
Rajkumar would take home over $1.4 Million for his 1st place finish, with Sang Kim leaving the casino with a hefty $750K prize for 2nd place. There was also a little WPT history made on this night, as it only took about 3 hours and only 48 hours for the TV final table to finish - the fastest time EVER recorded!
