Carlos Chadha Villamarin has won the $2,700 Championship event at the Borgata Summer Poker Opentopping a 565 entry field in Atlantic City to collect the first place prize of $242,385. The victory pushed Chadha’s career tournament earnings past $3.5 million and capped a summer that saw him compete deep into the World Series of Poker Main Event just weeks before adding this title to his resume.
A Marquee Event Inside a Busy Summer Festival
The $2,700 Championship stands as one of the headline events on the Borgata Summer Poker Open schedule, and its 565 entries reflect just how much attention the series has drawn this year. The tournament arrived on the heels of another milestone earlier in the festival, when Li Liang became the first woman to win a title at the Borgata Summer Poker Open, a result that had already given the series one significant storyline before the Championship even reached its final table. With Chadha’s win now added to the mix, the 2026 edition of the festival has produced two distinct headline moments within the same summer stop.
Chadha arrived at the final table already holding a commanding chip lead, a position that carried through the roughly three hour session it took to whittle nine players down to a champion. That kind of stack advantage does not guarantee a win on its own, especially against a final table stacked with players who had already outlasted hundreds of entries to get there, but Chadha managed the table’s dynamics well enough to keep his lead largely intact through the closing stages.
How the Final Table Played Out
The payouts behind Chadha reflected a tightly bunched group of finishers typical of a mid major buy-in event with this much depth. Maxwell Young finished as runner-up for $167,985, with Nicholas Verderamo taking third for $116,525. James Tedrow followed in fourth for $77,345, Michael Renna in fifth for $54,100, Russ Dunlevy in sixth for $42,975, Andrew Porter in seventh for $34,620, Ricky Guan in eighth for $28,160 and Mike Dentale rounding out the money making finishers in ninth for $22,945.
The tournament came down to a decisive river confrontation between Chadha and Young. Facing an all in shove on the river, Chadha made the call holding 8-4, a hand that had rivered two pair, against Young’s 5-3. The call ended the tournament on the spot, a fitting final hand for an event that had been defined by Chadha’s willingness to apply pressure from his chip lead throughout the closing table.
Part of a Bigger Summer for Chadha
The win did not come out of nowhere. Chadha had recently made a deep run through the World Series of Poker Main Event, finishing 51st out of more than 9,200 entries in poker’s most competitive tournament of the year. That result alone represented a significant score and a strong showing against the toughest field most players will face all year, and it set up a summer in which Chadha carried momentum directly from Las Vegas into the Borgata’s own marquee series.
Speaking after his win, Chadha credited the result to sustained effort rather than a single hot week, calling it “a culmination of four years of hard tournament work.” He pointed specifically to the study he had put into deep stack play as a factor in navigating the final table, adding that the win validated that investment and that “hard work pays off.” That kind of framing, crediting preparation over variance, is a common theme among players who put together strong summers across multiple series rather than a single career defining score.
What the Result Means for the Series
For the Borgata Summer Poker Open, Chadha’s title adds another strong storyline to a festival that has already delivered milestone results this year. Between Li Liang’s historic win and now a $242,385 score for Chadha built on a deep WSOP Main Event run just weeks earlier, the series continues to demonstrate why Atlantic City remains one of the busiest stops on the summer live tournament calendar outside of Las Vegas itself. Players interested in how tournament strategy shifts once a final table reaches nine handed play, the exact stage where Chadha built and defended his lead, can find a grounding in the fundamentals through Poker Pro Academy’s how to play poker guide.
With the Championship now decided, the Borgata Summer Poker Open moves toward the remainder of its 2026 schedule, but Chadha’s win, arriving so soon after his deep WSOP Main Event run, stands as one of the summer’s clearer signals that his game is rounding into form at exactly the right time.
