Yesterday saw the completion of Event 13, the first shoot-out tournament of the 2011 WSOP. 1440 people paid $1,500 to play the No-Limit Hold’em shootout, creating a $1,944,000 prize pool with $369,371 for 1st place.

The event started with 160 tables. In a shootout format, players must beat all the other players at their table before moving on to the next round. Everyone was required to emerge victorious at two tables in order to reach Day 3.

16 players made it to Day 3. At this point, everyone was given the same stack and the tournament resumed as a regular MTT. For all the remaining players, the goal was to the make the final table since, as usual, that was where the biggest payouts were.

When the final table was finally formed, there was absolutely no shortage of talent. In fact, four of the players had already won WSOP bracelets, including David Pham, Vitaly Lunkin, Erik Cajelais, and Dan Kelly.

Experience was not enough to beat this final table, however, as none of the previous bracelet winners came even close to heads-up play. Every event in this year’s WSOP has crowned a first-time bracelet winner so far, and Event 13 was no exception.

Andrew Badecker, an American poker pro, absolutely dominated the final table. He arrived at the final table with the chip lead, and while he lost it temporarily a few times, it never took him long to get it back.

This cash was Badecker’s 4th all time in the WSOP and, as stated earlier, his first bracelet. The 23-year-old had dropped out of school to pursue poker, and he was severely affected by the April indictments to PokerStars and Full Tilt. He decided to move to Vegas for the summer to see if he could get lucky and score huge. Results indicate that it was the right choice.

Badecker’s original plan was to play three events and go from there. Most players wouldn’t choose a shoot-out as their favorite tourney, but Badecker had history in this event. Back in 2009 he also won his first table to make it to Day 2 of the $1.5k shoot-out, but he fell short and was unable to beat his second table. This year he was able to make Day 3 and then take it one step further to win.

Badecker had to beat Robbie Verspui heads-up to win the title. He came into heads-up play with a significant chip-lead, and while Verspui was able to temporarily even up the stacks, that was as far as he got.

Congratulations to Badecker for winning his first WSOP bracelet! Please see below for the final table payouts.

1 – Andrew Badecker – $369,371
2 – Robbie Verspui – $228,334
3 – Daniel Makowsky – $151,379
4 – Jon Spinks – $108,358
5 – Eric Cajelais – $79,315
6 – Dan Kelly – $58,903
7 – Vitaly Lunkin – $44,362
8 – Joseph Webber – $33,864
9 – David Pham – $26,185