David Sklansky Loses to Some 21 Year-Old Kid Named Mark Newhouse at WPT Borgata Poker Open

Sometimes, results are secondary to the real story.

Now we here at Wicked Chops Poker don't want to fling false accusations, but we feel we have been plagiarized. Or at least the spirit of one of our posts has been plagiarized.

More on this in a second.

First, for those who results are not secondary: Mark Newhouse, a 21 year-old from Chapel Hill, NC, won the WPT Borgata Poker Open, banking $1,519,020. He beat Chris McCormack for the title.

Everyone's "favorite" author and poker "legend" David Sklansky, who kind of looks like Robert Varkonyi if Varkonyi donned a disguise while on lam from the law for a series of bank heists across the Midwest (see right), came in third, more than doubling his previous career tournament winnings and giving him his best tournament finish since the first George Bush's presidency when Madonna's "Like a Prayer" topped the pop charts.

Now the real story.

Last week we posted a faux-serious tournament write-up onthe WPT Borgata Poker Open based on the wonderful job the PR team for the event was doing.

Little did we know that they'd find our site and copy our style, essentially turning their WPT Borgata Poker Open report into: 1) a Pat Benatar song, and 2) a poorly written Borgata commercial. Consider the following examples...

Six Players Remain in the Battle for $1.5 Million First Place Prize at 2006 Borgata Poker Open

ATLANTIC CITY, NJ -- (MARKET WIRE) -- September 19, 2006 -- For the past four days, players battled. Over 500 players entered the Borgata Poker Open final tournament with the same goal and dream -- to be one of the final six...

NOW CONSIDER that in our post making fun of their press releases, our headline leads with:

"Poker Players Go to Battle at WPT Borgata Poker Open Championship..."

And one of our first sentences says:

"After two days of intense battle..."

Later, the Borgata release says, "The action started quickly with several players making quick exits before the play tightened."

This is clearly a play on our:

"The action is really going to heat up on Sunday, as the remaining 69 players fight for a spot 'in the money,' as only the top 55 get paid."

Then, in perhaps the most blatant attempt at plagiarism we've seen since that cute little Indian chick at Harvard, Kaavya Viswanathan's, wrote How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, the Borgata release quotes Bette Carswell as saying, "The $26,000 prize money is more than I make as a teacher, so that is great for me. I'm taking my parents to Bobby Flay's to celebrate."

In our post, one of our faux-quotes said:

"And after competing against some of the world's top players, there's nothing I enjoy more than grabbing a great meal at one of my favorite Borgata restaurants, like Bobby Flay's Steak or Specchio."

Listen people, we know our writing provides a nice change of pace for some, but please, if you're gonna just hijack our material, at least give us a shout-out in your post or press release. Because this is America. And the only thing worse to Americans than murder, rape, terrorists, communists, and the French are people who plagarize without giving proper credit.

Here's your final results and payouts: 1) Mark Newhouse - $1,519,020, 2) Chris McCormack - $802,985, 3) David Sklansky - 419,040, 4) Anthony Argila - $366,660, 5) Chris Bell - $314,280, 6) Blaise Ingoglia - $261,901.

* Image of David Sklansky Poker Pages.