The camaraderie of the Bar Poker Open was on full display late into the night at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, with the final table lasting more than seven hours to determine a winner in the $400 Atlantic City Championship.

Albert Croteau was feeling the support from his home league, the Eastern Poker Tour, as he battled for the biggest moment of his poker career.

"Those are my people," Croteau explained after defeating Anton Saich heads-up to earn the victory. "They were rooting on me on the live stream and just watching from their game that they were playing. So that just makes me feel great, the community that we got."

Croteau rode that inspiration to the largest score of a career with results dating back to 2010, taking home $30,000 and the BPO trophy.

The tournament marked a return to Atlantic City for the BPO after a five-year break, and attracted a total of 464 entries comprised of qualified BPO seat winners and Super League invitees. Together, they created a prize pool of $146,000 that was distributed among the top 48 finishers.

$400 Atlantic City Championship Final Table Results

From Satellite to the Spotlight

Croteau earned his way into the event by winning an EPT satellite, and it instantly changed his plans for the middle of November.

"I won one of the final package satellites, the final one that they had, and I wasn't going to come if I didn't win a package."

His previous best finish was fourth place in a World Series of Poker Circuit event for $10,020 last year, and was thrilled to earn a new career milestone. "This is definitely my biggest right now. Amazing. It's amazing."

After finishing with a top-five stack on Day 1a, Croteau navigated his way to the final table with a mindset from his partner. "It was just survivor, outwit, outlast, outplay. That's what my girlfriend was saying to me all day, all these past few days, and that's what I really took into account. I was really surviving, and making moves when I needed to."

"Don't waiver from what I do. Be aggressive. And that's what I did."

Croteau only knocked out a single player before the final table, but his well-timed play led to a spot among the final eight.

Marathon Final Table

The players took their seats under the lights of the Bar Poker Open stream table shortly after 7:00 p.m. local time, for what would become the longest BPO final table ever. Just under 12 hours after starting the day, Croteau finally grabbed the chip lead. From there, it took another three hours before Croteau knocked out Charles Gudaitis to reach heads-up play.

"I was getting tired, I was. But luckily every time people got knocked out, it gave me a little bit of boost and you know, kept going."

Croteau's last opponent was also the youngest at the final table. Saich was able to battle back from a chip deficit before ultimately running into Croteau's flopped two pair to end the tournament a short time before 3 a.m. in Atlantic City.

At that moment, Croteau was able to reflect on what the Bar Poker community has meant to him. "I love it, it's been great for myself to get into poker again. I was maybe, I don't want to say too into poker, but it wasn't the best thing. The BPO really helped me step back a little bit, enjoy the time with the people that I play with like up in the North Shore."

Now that he has the title, Croteau is looking forward to earning more bragging rights for the Eastern Poker Tour. "We're gonna take it to next championship, and I'm gonna be there representing and hopefully bring some more people down with me."

That wraps up PokerNews coverage of the BPO Atlantic City Championship, but be sure to check out our live reporting from tournaments around the poker world.