Queen outpaces Anthony Zinno and Brian Yoon to capture the title
Alex Queen overcame 689 entries at the 2024 Borgata Winter Poker Open Main Event in Atlantic City, New Jersey, beating a formidable final table group that included Anthony Zinno and Brian Yoon. He would beat John Pannucci heads-up to take the 2024 WPO Championship and a top prize of $613,063 in cash.
The Bethlehem, PA, native took a $3,000 event at the 2010 Borgata Spring Poker Open, his biggest career cash, and made a couple of final tables at WSOP events. He cashed in five WSOP events last summer. The Borgata’s WPO Main Event had a $5,300 buy-in as the players went for the first big title of the year. The prize pool grew to over $3.3 million, with the top 87 players in the money.
Zinno, Yoon, Queen, Pannucci, Carlos Chadha and Casey Hatmaker made up the final table, each guaranteed to win at least six figures. Several notable players had deep runs to take a piece of the prize pool, including Paul Volpe, James Gilbert, Jeff Gross, Aaron Massey (14th), Matthew Wantman and Keven Stammen (16th).
Hatmaker was the first eliminated from the final table, taking home $123,875 for sixth place. Chadha would take fifth place to secure $155,387. Zinno has his fair share of wins in WPT events, but his tournament would end in fourth place for $203,473, taking his career earnings over $11 million. Yoon would finish in third place for a $277,123 payday.
When it was over, Pannucchi would go to the rail in second place to snag $429,863 as runner-up. Queen’s seventh tournament victory is his biggest career cash, taking him over the $2 million mark in total earnings.
