Travel Report: PokerStars Festival New Jersey, Day 4 -- A First Festival Champ

When we arrived for Day 3 of the PokerStars Festival New Jersey Main Event yesterday, the thought was we’d likely be having a short day as just 23 remained and the final table was scheduled for Saturday. But plans changed and the players decided to push on through to a conclusion, which meant another noon-to-midnight day for those of us reporting on the sucker.

Was kind of a fun finale to follow, as it turned out, with some interesting hands and a heads-up comeback that finished with Jason Acosta -- who’d qualified online for the event on PokerStarsNJ -- outlasting Mike Gagliano. Matt Affleck made the final table as well, finishing fifth.

Brad Willis wrote up a nice recap of the final day of play that includes a little about winner Acosta and gives a good idea of how the day and tournament went.

It was definitely a modest affair, relatively speaking, with only a $200K prize pool and $38K up top. But as I was saying earlier in the week it seemed like all involved had a good time and it worked as a kind of initial step back into the live tournament game in the U.S. for Stars.

Will be looking in the finale of the High Roller today, along with some of the other things going on including a “Run It Up” 8-game event featuring Jason Somerville (who won the Chad Brown tournament, I forgot to mention) and a lot of his followers from here in the area. Check the PokerStars blog as usual for updates and more.