Scarborough Prevails At WPT Hollywood Poker Open

The same night that Vanessa Selbst was winning her historical second NAPT title in Connecticut, another important live tournament was being decided in the Midwest. The WPT Hollywood Poker Open in Indiana earned a lot of press for its stacked final table, and many critics were predicting that the hugely successful Erik Seidel was going to add another title to his long resume, but ultimately it was 2011 poker upstart Michael Scarborough that prevailed to take the Main Event.

Scarborough’s victory may seem like it came out of nowhere if you haven’t been following the rest of this year’s Hollywood Poker Open, but the relative newcomer had been wowing crowds at the tournament for the last week, making his eventual Main Event win surprisingly unsurprising for returning spectators.

Just how good did Scarborough fair in Hollywood? Let’s put it this way: his Main Event win wasn’t his first title at the Hollywood Poker Open tournament…it wasn’t even his second. Granted, the other events that Scarborough entered weren’t even WPT sponsored, but it’s hard to argue with three wins in two weeks (plus another runner-up finish.)

Scarborough started his impressive Hollywood Poker Open grind by winning the $500 buy-in No Limit Hold’em event on April 3. The following day he reasserted his dominance in the NLHE format by winning the $300 buy-in No Limit Hold’em event. Then on April 7 Scarborough stepped things up a little by taking a second place finish in the significantly larger $300 buy-in No Limit Hold’em Deep Stack event. Those three wins were the only live tournament wins on Scarborough’s record going into the Main Event.

Despite his mounting success, winning the Main Event wasn’t an easy road for Scarborough. He survived the early hands of the final table with relative ease, but was nearly knocked out in third during three-handed play against William Reynolds and Erik Seidel. Reynolds didn’t give up his seat until around 2 a.m., but once he was gone Scarborough was able to dispatch Seidel in only 30 minutes, proving his mettle against some of the game’s best players and netting an impressive $273,664 paycheck in the process.

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