David Stefanski has taken down the $10,200 BetMGM Poker Big, Big Baller at Borgata, outlasting a field of high rollers to claim his first title of the 2026 Big, Big Series and a payday of $169,220.
The event drew 69 entries, generating a $690,000 prize pool. Stefanski's winning total came in two parts: $149,260 guaranteed through a three-handed chop, and a further $19,960 left on the table to be played for. Michael Wang fell at the final hurdle, losing the heads-up match after the deal was struck.
The final table featured a strong New Jersey and East Coast contingent, with Gagliano, Elias and Wilson among those returning for the final day.
The chop is the interesting part
The headline is the win. The instructive detail is the structure of the settlement.
A three-handed deal that locks in $149,260 apiece and leaves $19,960 to play for is a specific kind of agreement, and it tells you something about how the players evaluated their positions. In a 69-entry $10,200 event, the top three payouts before a deal would typically have been spread across a considerable range — first place materially above second, second above third.
By agreeing to an almost flat distribution with a small amount left live, the three players effectively converted the remaining tournament from a high-variance contest into a modest winner-take-all side pot. Each locked in roughly 14.6 times the buy-in regardless of what followed.
This is the classic ICM-driven deal. In chip terms, a player with a large stack three-handed has far more than a third of the chips. In equity terms — real dollars — that advantage is heavily compressed, because tournament payouts are concave. Doubling your stack does not double your expected prize money. It never does, and the gap widens as the payout jumps get steeper.
That compression is precisely why deals happen. The chip leader is giving up less than the raw chip count suggests, and the short stacks are gaining less than they might hope. Somewhere in between there is a price everyone accepts.
Our explainer on ICM sets out the underlying model, and our tournaments guide covers how it shapes late-stage decisions more broadly.
How to think about a deal offer
If you have never been in a final-table deal conversation, the mechanics are worth knowing before you are in one, because the negotiation moves quickly and the numbers are large.
Know your ICM number before you sit down to talk. Most deals are proposed either as a flat chop (everyone takes the same) or an ICM chop (each player takes their model-calculated equity). ICM is the mathematically defensible baseline. A flat chop favours the short stacks; anything above your ICM number favours you.
Skill edge is a legitimate adjustment, in both directions. ICM assumes all players are equally skilled. If you are clearly the strongest player remaining, you have a real argument for taking more than your ICM share — and if you are the weakest, taking your ICM number straight is a good outcome. The market reality is that most players overrate their own edge here.
Leaving money to play for is usually sensible. The $19,960 left live in this event served a practical purpose. It preserves the competitive integrity of the finish, it gives the eventual winner a legitimate claim to the title, and in many jurisdictions it satisfies the requirement that a tournament must produce an outright winner. It also lets players who feel they have an edge express it, at a size that will not wreck anyone's month.
Consider variance honestly. A player shot-taking at $10,200 out of a bankroll that does not comfortably support it should be far more willing to deal than a professional playing well within their roll. That is not weakness; it is correct bankroll management. Our bankroll management guide explains why the right answer genuinely differs by player.
The high roller as a schedule fixture
The Big, Big Baller's place on the Borgata calendar says something about how regional festivals have evolved.
A decade ago, a $10,000 buy-in event at an Atlantic City festival would have been the headline and would have struggled to draw 40 players. Sixty-nine entries for a $10,200 buy-in in mid-September, at a property not hosting a WSOP or WPT flagship, reflects a durable high-stakes East Coast player pool that did not exist at that scale before.
Part of that is the growth of regulated online poker in New Jersey, which has produced a generation of players who moved up through online stakes and now play live regionally. Part of it is the broader professionalisation of the mid-to-high stakes tournament circuit.
The event sits inside the wider Big, Big Series, which ran September 13–23 with $6 million in guarantees across 11 events and builds to a $5,300 Championship carrying a $3,000,000 guarantee. Elsewhere in the series, Aaron Pinson won the $2,200 Big, Big Mystery Bounty for $199,825 after pulling $150,000 in bounties from a $500,000 prize pool.
What this means for players
Deals are normal and you should be prepared. If you play tournaments with meaningful payout jumps, you will eventually be offered one. Arriving at the conversation without a rough ICM estimate puts you at a real disadvantage against opponents who have one.
Payout structure is concave, always. Every tournament you play has this property. It is why laddering matters near the bubble and at every subsequent pay jump, and why the chip leader should play somewhat more conservatively than raw chip equity implies. This is one of the most consistently exploitable gaps between recreational and experienced tournament play.
Shot-taking requires a plan. If you are entering an event that is a stretch for your bankroll, decide in advance how you will treat a deal offer. Making that decision while three-handed for six figures is not the ideal moment for a clear-eyed assessment of your own edge.
Watch the mid-stakes ladder. For players who want to progress toward events like this, the path runs through satellites and mid-stakes online tournaments rather than direct buy-ins. Our real money poker and cash games vs tournaments guides cover how to build that progression without overexposing a bankroll.
Stefanski's $169,220 is a career result by any measure. The part worth studying is the $149,260 he locked up before the cards were dealt.