Anyone who’s read The Godfather of Poker (Doyle Brunson’s autobiography) will know that poker games can sometimes result in genuine gun fights. Most of the time though, a poker shootout means a special kind multi-table tournament. That’s the way it was in Event #16 at this year’s Spring Championship of Online Poker. Each of the high, medium, and low stakes tournaments followed a No Limit Hold ‘em Shooutout format, requiring players to win a series of single-table contests to advance.
The most affordable version was a $20 + $2 tournament with 10-max tables and a $150,000 guarantee. A massive 10,000 people turned up to take a stab at the cash, building a prize pool of just over $170,000. The number of entrants meant that anyone who wanted to capture the title would have to win 4 separate 10-player tables. In the end it took over 14 hours for a winner to be crowned, with the climactic pair concluding their battle at 04:47 ET.
The final table began with a confrontation between lostrom and bil667766. Holding only Q-T against bil’s A-K, lostrom needed some help which never came. Despite dragging that pot, bil667766 didn’t last much longer, running face first into pocket aces. He was joined on the rail by Saa29, who, holding QQ – could do nothing when faced with the pocket kings of Rockfish_UK.
1JC1 fell at the wayside thanks to delysid, before two fishes collided to decide 7th place. Jarfish’s held A-Q, up against the 9-9 of Rockfish_UK. It looked like the pocket pair had one it until a devastating Ace fell on the river to deny Rockfish_UK his shot at the Event #16 title. Jarfish celebrated his victory by knocking out majscht in 5th, with mcf1sh also on his way out at the hands of kalixalven. This set up a three way encounter with delysid and Jarfish, which progressed to heads up when Jarfish moved all in with A-3 against kalixalven’s 5-5. The board contained nothing of interest and that was all she wrote for Jarfish.
Up to this point, delysid had enjoyed a fairly quiet final table, but he stepped up to plate during heads up to topple his aggressive opponent. kalixalven began the contest with a 4-1 chip lead, but found himself ground down close to even before too long. In the penultimate hand, delysid needed a lifeline with A-Q against his opponent’s A-K. Luckily for him the board fell 7-J-10-3-K to deliver a dramatic gutshot straight on the river. Final hand formalities concluded, delysid was confirmed as the SCOOP Event #16 champion, picking up $26,794 for his efforts.
On the second rung of Event #16, players needed to find $200 + $15 for this $150,000 guaranteed tournament. Exactly 1000 entrants built the prize pool to a neat $200,000, meaning that it would take two single table victories to reach the final table. Canadian pro Jean-Philippe Piquette featured heavily, but could not advance beyond 6th place. As the final trio began to fight through the dying hours of the tournament, it looked as though Beldar C. would be the one to walk away with all the glory. He quickly dispatched Lovetoslam in 3rd ($18,900) and set up a one-on-one battle with shinerrr – otherwise known as 23 year old Cathal Shine from Kerry, Ireland. In the end, the contest lasted only a few hands, with the duo both all-in on a board of A-9-3-Q. With the cards flipped, Beldar C. was drawing extremely thin, with A-8 top pair against the A-9 two-pair of shinerrrr. A blank King on the river was no help, crowning Cathal as the 2010 Event #16 SCOOP Champion.
Unlike its two smaller brothers, the high stakes version of this No Limit Shootout failed to breach its $200,000 guarantee. Still, it was no less hotly contested, the elite 100 entrants putting up $2000 + $100 each for the privilege. Each player needed to win only one 10-max table to advance to the final set and make the money. Despite the relatively small numbers, it still took ten hours to crown a winner, with the top players in the game constantly trading chips back and forth.
Half of that time was spent at the final table, where players like E1mdopp and Kleath fell by the wayside early on. In the end, it was two relative unknowns to win the right to contest the title: “Dumping”KGB and Fil Gordon squared off for the big-money contest in Event #16. In the final hand, a series of bets flew back and fourth before the flop, until Fil Gordon found himself all-in. Amazingly, it was revealed that he had been raising with just 8-7 suited, way behind the 9-9 of “Dumping”KGB. The board ran out K-T-5-2-8 and “Dumping”KGB ended the tournament $60,000 richer.
The final table payouts from each event were as follows:
Low:
1st place: delysid ($26,794.80)
2nd place: kalixalven ($19,559.20)
3rd place: Jarfish ($14,882.00)
4th place: mcf1sh ($10,630.00)
5th place: majscht ($6,803.20)
6th place: Rockfish_UK ($5,102.40)
7th place: 1JC1 ($3,911.84)
8th place: Saa29 ($2,806.32)
9th place: bil667766 ($1,955.92)
10th place: lostrom ($1105.52)
Mid:
1. shinerrr ($36,500)
2. Beldar C. ($25,400)
3. Lovetoslam ($18,900)
4. designet ($14,100)
5. Tipsy ($9,900)
6. Jean-Pierre “Piquette” Piquette ($8,000)
7. Scott “icallseat3” Sitron ($6,300)
8. wmmcl ($5,000)
9. StuMan123 ($3,800)
Husky007 ($2,800)
High:
1. “Dumping”KGB – $60,000
2. Fil Gordon – $40,000
3. yurabond – $27,000
4. Godfatti – $19,800
5. takechip – $14,000
6. AaronBeen – $11,000
7. inissint – $8,800
8. slammedfire – $7,500
9. kleath – $6,400
10. e1mdopp – $5,500