| BRUCATO WINS 2009 POKER CHAMPIONSHIP - Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 08:16 |
| THE 2009 Brooktown WSOP final event was held in Jackson NJ last night and 8 players vied for the championship bracelet. Points champ Jay Fern, led the table that included (from left to right) 3 Time champ Rich Southard, Scott Davis, Mike Triola, Rich Mangine, defending champ Tom Brucato, Bob Darakjy, and Frank Cole. We began at 7:35 and there was not a lot of action with most of the players keeping tight to the vest, and few multi player pots. The first elimination came late in level 3 when Mike Triola’s KQ caught a card and knocked out Bob’s AJ at 9:29. 10 minutes later Tom’s 5-5 held up over Frank’s all in with AK and we were down to 6. The remaining 6 moved chips around with Mike Triola and Rich Mangine holding the chips leads for most of the middle rounds, but Mangine’s cards ran very cold and at 11:07 Jay’s J-10 took out Mangine’s K-J and only 5 were left. Two of the most dangerous players in Brooktown history, Rich and Jay were both very low stacks and Brucato and Triola took shots at them in an effort to knock them out but failed. Eventually at 11:52 Scott Davis A-Q called Southard’s A-10 all in and 3-Time Champ, and the only man to have cashed in all 4 Brooktown Championship events was gone. Scott had amassed a nice chip stack at this point, and we were now one player from the money. At 12:08 Jay took Mike Triola out with 8-8 vs. A-J and we had our final 3. Scott had about 39,000 chips, Tom 25,000 and Jay 16,000. Play was very conservative for about 30 minutes, with Scott not giving up many chips and Jay failing to accumulate many until finally at 12:38 Scott K-K took out Jay’s A-J and we had heads up between the defending champ Tom Brucato, and for the first time in the money at the final table Scott Davis. The chip count was about 52-28K with Scott holding an advantage. Brucato came out firing to win the first 5 hands and cut the lead to 44-36K but then Scott took over and within no time had seemed to be on the verge of winning the event and took a commanding 60-20K chip lead. But the tide turned, and Brucato finally started to get some cards, as pocked 5’s held up to double him up and then with a board of Q-J-7-6 a 4 came out on the River to match Brucato’s j-4 and give him 2 pair over Scott’s Q’s an his first chip lead of the events. A few hands later Brucato went all in with J-J,Scott called with J-10, and when Scott failed to get any help Tom Brucato emerged as the 2009 Brooktown WSOP champion. It was a great year as always, and I want to thank all of you guys for being a part of it. I truly look forward to it each month and enjoy the competition and camaraderie we share. |