Paul Volpe Wins Borgata Big, Big Championship After ICM Deal
Volpe took $492,415 and the trophy after he and Frank Lagodich ended the $3 million event without playing a heads-up hand.
Paul Volpe won the $5,300 BetMGM Big, Big Championship at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, taking the trophy and $492,415 after making a heads-up ICM deal with Frank Lagodich. The event drew 519 entries and generated a $3 million prize pool, paying 65 places.
Lagodich received $420,000 as runner-up. The two did not play a hand heads-up: Volpe held 15.25 million chips to Lagodich’s 5.5 million when they agreed to the deal. Volpe told PokerNews that both players were tired, respected each other’s games and chose to lock up the money.
The result turned around a difficult final day for Volpe. He said he had fallen to eight big blinds early on Day 3 before rebuilding, reaching the final table with the chip lead and eventually closing out the title. As we reported Sept. 23, Lagodich had started the final day as chip leader with 19 players left.
Tyler Hirschfeld finished third for $263,150, followed by Brock Wilson in fourth for $175,080 and Sanat Mehrotra in fifth for $122,850. Scott Blumstein took sixth for $97,865, while David Kinane, Julian Altieri and Sead Duraku completed the nine-handed final table.
Volpe’s route to the heads-up deal included a key elimination of Duraku, when his pocket jacks made a set against Duraku’s pocket aces. He later eliminated Altieri with ace-king against king-queen, then knocked out Hirschfeld in third with a jack-high straight on the river against Hirschfeld’s trip nines.
The $492,415 prize was Volpe’s biggest Borgata score, his third-largest recorded live-tournament cash and his biggest since summer 2018. It took his Borgata main-event winnings beyond $1.5 million across 10 final tables over 15 years, while his recorded lifetime live earnings rose to nearly $10.8 million.
Volpe called Borgata his home casino and favorite place to play because of its proximity to home. He also said he considers mixed games his stronger discipline, though he enjoys no-limit hold’em tournaments, and credited his recent results to “baby rungood.”
Lagodich’s $420,000 was the second-largest live cash of his career. The finish earned Volpe 1,680 Card Player Player of the Year points, taking his 2026 total to 2,105, while Lagodich collected 1,400 points to reach 3,287.
Volpe said he expected his next poker trip would probably be to the Wynn in December, while he has been spending time at home with his nine-month-old child.
