After five grueling days of action, a medical doctor bested the 560-strong field of players in the WPT's 2007 Borgata Poker Open. Roy Winston who collects just over $1.5 million dollars, took down the event ahead of well known High Stakes Poker players Haralabos Voulgaris and Mike 'The Mouth' Matusow who could only finish in 3rd and 6th respectively.
Starting 3rd in chips, Matusow was flat-lined early on when he flopped top two pair and was all-in against Winston's top pair and diamond nut-flush draw. The turn wasn't a friend to Matusow as the two of diamonds came to complete the draw and the river failed to pair the Ace or Queen.
Eugene Todd and Mark Weitzman departed shortly afterwards before Voulgaris tried to 3-bet all-in preflop against Winston with Q-9, only to be defeated by the good doctor's A-4.
This left the latter up against the unknown rookie Scott Yoon, here playing his first ever major tournament, though he was in a tough spot as Winston had 13.37 million chips to Yoon's 3.45 million. However, this was not to be the end of things, it had taken around 50 hands to get to heads up, but the the tournament would last a further 84 hands before a winner was declared.
Both players seemed determined not to 'lose' by making mistakes and actually began to play fairly passively. Bizarrely, on several occasions both players would make two pair and then check both the turn and river, refusing on multiple occasions to value bet. On another occasion, both players made a straight on the turn but again checked turn and river.
Finally, in keeping with this slightly bemusing heads up encounter, Winston limp-called a raise with pocket fours against Yoon's Ace King. Yoon check/raised for around half his stack on a Q-6-4 board before quickly calling when Winston set him in. No running miracle cards for the broadway straight came along surprisingly and Yoon took roughly $830,000 for his second place finish. The more experienced Dr Winston gained the coveted bracelet, an entry into the WPT main event the fabulous silver watch, and enough money to buy a new hospital wing.