$260 + 40 Ladies No Limit Hold'em (Re-Entry)
It was a heads up match that was for the story books: the player who just steamrolled the tournament and had all the chips versus the player who was short the entire event. Marguerite Spagnuolo (Staten Island, NY) was strapped with a serious deficit when heads up play started -- almost two to one. The way Alida Vileu (Wykoff, NJ) was running all day, it was going to be a tough mountain to climb. However, Spagnuolo turned it on during heads up play (and making hands doesn't hurt either), and found some good fortune on the final hand. She had one over card and a flush draw against Vileu's two pair on the turn, and found the nine of spades to win the hand and the tournament.
Spagnuolo already had a ladies event win under her belt, but this was her first at Borgata! The $4,766 she collected for the win pushed her career earnings to over $60,000, and added a trophy for her mantle at home. Spagnuolo is a Borgata regular who calls the poker room her "home away from home." She's a wife, mother, and heck of a poker player to boot, who has cashed in now her seventh ladies event.
Adila Vileu (Staten Island, NY) was knocking out players left and right throughout the tournament, and was never short until heads up play. Vileu collected $2,588 for her runner up finish, and added to what was already a special day (her birthday).
We saw so many lovely ladies of the Borgata in this event, including Nancy Martin, Alyson Parker, Kim Edmonds, and Emily Flax. Unfortunately none of those players cashed, but a handful of notables did, including Leanne Rosenblatt, Dawn Wilno, Eileen Kustafik, Sarah Wasch, and Keiko Lim.
Spagnuolo vows to be back in action tomorrow for another Borgata Summer Poker Open event. The amount of congrats that she received via text and Twitter shows how loved she is in our poker community, and we look forward to seeing a lot more of her in the near future and beyond.
