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The final table is set for the World Poker Tour’s Borgata Winter Poker Open with solid pro David Paredes atop the standings. In search of his first major championship, Paredes will have to contend with a quintet of opponents that also includes former WPT champion Jared Jaffee.

36 survivors came back to the felt on Thursday to work their way down to the final table as Farid Jattin headed the field. Among the 36 players still in contention were several notable names that included Chad Brown, Faraz Jaka, Chris Reslock, John D’Agostino, John Dibella and former WPT Player of the Year Joe Serock. Within moments of the cards going in the air, the first of the 36 players would find his way to the door.

Whangkyung Choi opened the action from the button on one of the first hands dealt and Brown, in the small blind, just smooth call the bet. Anthony Bellino, in the big blind, decided to make his stand at this point by pushing in his remaining 172K in chips. Both Choi and Brown made the call but, after a Q-5-3-10 flop and turn, Choi would push a bet out that forced Brown to fold. When Choi and Bellino turned up their cards, Bellino’s pocket deuces were trumped by Choi’s A-10 for a better pair. Looking for one of two outs, Bellino was dismayed to see a seven come on the river as he departed the tournament in 36th place.

Paredes would make his move to the top of the leaderboard in taking a big pot against Matthew Parry. On a 6 5 3♣ 5♠ A board, Paredes pushed out a big 530K bet that sent Parry into the tank for several minutes. Parry would eventually make the call and then just as quickly muck his cards when Paredes tabled his 9 8 for the rivered flush. In taking down the more-than one million chip pot, Paredes rocketed to the top of the table with 2.7 million chips and wouldn’t slow down from there.

As action worked into the mid-afternoon, the field began to quickly whittle down. Serock dropped out in 33rd place after an ill-timed push with K-Q against Frank Toscano’s A-Q; D’Agostino ended his run in 30th place at the hands of Kalyan Gullapalli; Brown would drop out in 26th place when Jaffee’s suited A-J stood up to Brown’s suited K-8 (after some tense moments on a J-9-3-8-Q board) and Jaka bowed out in 22nd place when he couldn’t catch Anthony Maio’s pocket Kings (holding Q-J) on a Q-5-4-3-10 board.

Jattin had been quiet through the afternoon’s actions, but he picked the pace up as night fell on the Jersey shore. He would eliminate Byron Kaverman in 21st to push his stack over the six million mark to hold the lead when the tournament tables were redrawn with 18 players remaining. After the redraw, he continued to push the action, taking chips from Gullapalli and Paredes to maintain his lead.

Paredes would continue to be active over the final two tables as he began his drive to the lead. He knocked off Eric Wasserson and Gullapalli in 17th and 16th places, respectively, but by the time the final ten players were determined with Jaffee’s elimination of Tyler Patterson in 11th place, it was Jaffee who was in a dominant chip lead. The players went to a dinner break after Patterson’s elimination before coming back to knock off four more players before calling it a night.

The ten men would battle it out for 40 hands before the floodgates would open on eliminations. A short-stacked Reslock was the first to go in tenth place (at the hands of Maio) as Paredes slowly grinded his way into the lead. Paredes would soar above the ten million chip mark in eliminating Choi in ninth place and then sit back to see who would come with him to the final table. Once Maio eliminated Kunal Patel on the television table bubble (seventh place, good for a $135,172 payday), he would join Paredes over the nine million chip mark for today’s final table:

1. David Paredes, 9.65 million
2. Anthony Maio, 9.5 million
3. Jared Jaffee, 6.62 million
4. Farid Jattin, 6.115 million
5. Anthony Merulla, 3.445 million
6. Vlad Mezheritsky, 1.39 million

He hasn’t yet won a major event, but Paredes is a veteran of the tournament poker wars. With over $860,000 in career earnings, he will join poker’s “Millionaire Club” wherever he finishes in this tournament. While Maio has been running hot to this final table, Jaffee may be the player to watch out for; the winner of the WPT Jacksonville bestbet Fall Poker Scramble in November 2013, Jaffee is looking to join the ranks of multiple WPT event winners if he wins today.

The final table is set to kick off at 4PM (Eastern Time) this afternoon and it will be taped for broadcast during the WPT’s Season XII schedule on Fox Sports. For those who would like to watch the proceedings live, the WPT’s Tony Dunst will be anchoring the streaming coverage beginning at 4:30PM on the WPT website. The eventual champion will walk away with a $842,379 payday and a seat at the upcoming Season XII WPT World Championship event in April.

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