When your nickname is just the name of the game you play the most, it's safe to say you're probably pretty good at that game. Team Online's Matthias "Mati312" Brandner is known as "Mr. Badugi," thanks to his great success playing the game at high stakes. Now he has a Badugi tournament victory to go along with those winnings after breaking through in Event #23-M.

The tournament drew a select field of 186 players, good for a $37,200 prize pool to be shared among the top 24 finishers. Team Pro's George Danzer managed to make the money but couldn't draw close to the final table, finishing in 21st place ($465). Shaun "shaundeeb" Deeb also busted from the same table, finishing 17th. Not long after their departures, Day 1 ended as the final table was reached.

Sitting at the top of the leaderboard overnight was none other than Team Online's Naoya "nkeyno" Kihara. Holding the chip lead gave him an advantage for chasing down his first SCOOP title after finishing both second and third in past events. But even with an advantage, there was plenty of competition to get through, including multiple past COOP winners and Kihara's teammate, Brandner, who took 5th place in SCOOP 2014's high-price Badugi event.

Seat 1: gmd68 (256,230 in chips)
Seat 2: Team Online's Naoya "nkeyno" Kihara (515,305 in chips)
Seat 3: The TJS (308,390 in chips)
Seat 4: Premove (233,335 in chips)
Seat 5: Team Online's Matthias "Mati312" Brandner (259,050 in chips)
Seat 6: CAE$AR_08 (124,860 in chips)
Seat 7: aDrENalin710 (39,890 in chips)
Seat 8: Sal "ugritaly" Fazzino (122,940 in chips)

Four-time COOP winner aDrENalin710 had past experience grinding back from a short stack to win a SCOOP title, and in a triple-draw game no less. But having just three big bets didn't leave much room for withstanding an early loss. aDrENalin710 three-bet from the small blind early on after Mati312 raised in the cutoff, and ugritaly joined the two of them, drawing one card the whole way. aDrENalin710 stood pat on the first two draws before taking one card one the third, while Mati312 went 2-1-1 on his draws. urgitaly finally got his card on the third draw and showed down [8s] [5d] [3c] [2h] to take the pot, so it was no fifth COOP for aDrENalin710, who was out in 8th place ($1,023).

Premove made the $215 Badugi final table in SCOOP 2013 and took 5th place, but more recently finished 6th in Event #21-L just a few hours ago. Unfortunately the Russian player wouldn't top either of those finishes here. After losing a few pots in the early going, a particularly nasty cooler in the small blind shut down Premove's day in this tournament. Dealt a Badugi with [8d] [6h] [7s] [3c] in the small blind, Premove raised to 14K and then four-bet for 28K after Mati312 re-raised in the big blind. Both stood pat and kept up the betting until Premove was all-in, and then Mati312 showed down [8h] [7d] [6s] [2c] - a Badugi with the top three cards identical to Premove, only with a deuce instead of a trey. The slimmest of losses sent Premove to the rail in 7th place ($1,302).

Fellow short stack CAE$AR_08 would go on the next hand, also from the small blind. The Bulgarian player re-raised and then stood pat with [Tc] [7h] [4c] [2d], and ugritaly, winner of two TCOOP tournaments this January, stood pat as well after taking one card on the first draw and then re-raising CAE$AR_08's bet. That shook Mati312 and ugritaly heads-up with CAE$AR_08, showing down [9h] [6d] [3c] [2s] after the Bulgarian player was all-in. ugritaly took the pot, and CAE$AR_08 took 6th place ($1,674).

gmd68, who won the Turbo Takedown back in 2010 and made the final table of Event #4-M earlier this week, wasn't particularly short with more than 95K in chips. But a fold after the third draw in a pot against The TJS left gmd68 in the hole with just over two big bets. Even after doubling up twice with the tournament on the line, a single loss - against The TJS once again - left gmd68 hoping for an opening. The German player was ground down by the blinds and finally raised all-in for a single big bet, discarding one card on all three draws in a three-way pot with Mati312 and The TJS. The Badugi remained elusive, though. Mati312 showed down the winner, and gmd68 left in 5th place ($2,046).

After all that action, the table was four-handed and both Team Online players were still in the hunt. The TJS had the lead with 614K, and the other three players were relatively equally stacked between 399K and 432K. With the stakes newly raised to 8K/16K there was still a lot of poker to be played, and the 59 hands that followed could serve as a workshop for anybody looking to learn about playing Badugi well. As it had through the final table, the chip lead would change hands during this stretch. Mati312 took it from The TJS in a pot where the former stood pat after the second draw and the latter folded after the third. Then nkeyno won two sizable pots and suddenly all four players' stacks were within just two big bets of each other.

Mati312 eventually managed to string together two wins within three hands against The TJS. The first came when both players could only make a 3-card and Mati312's 5-2-A beat The TJS's 7-6-2, and the second when Mati312 drew one card to a 9-5-2-A Badugi on the first draw and stood pat the rest of the way. The TJS mucked at showdown on that second hand and was left with 61K. Half of those chips went in before the first draw two hands later after ugritaly re-raised The TJS's opener, and the rest went in after the second draw. Both players were drawing the whole way and could only make three-card hands, ugritaly with [7h] [5s] [2h] [Ac] for 5-2-A, and The TJS with [5d] [4h] [3h] [2s] for 5-3-2, out by the slimmest of margins in 4th place ($3,162).

Three players remained now, two were from Team Online, and one was multitabling another SCOOP Badugi final. Naoya Kihara's focus was divided between three-handed play in both this tournament and Event #23-H, the $2,100 version. In some ways an enviable position, it still meant he had two different groups of world-class players coming after him at the same time. He began three-handed play in this tournament as the shortest stack and soon lost two pots to ugritaly: whiffing a one-card draw all three times in the first pot, and then standing pat after discarding one on the first draw, only to see ugritaly make a better Badugi on the second draw with T-6-4-2.

Two hands after that, Kihara made his stand. He raised the button to 24K, drew two cards, and then called ugritaly's bets the rest of the way before raising all-in after the third draw with a [Tc] [6s] [2h] [Ad] Badugi. ugritaly had drawn the same number of cards on each draw - two, one, and one - and ended up with a nearly identical hand: [9d] [4s] [3c] [Ah]. The nine beat the ten, and Naoya "nkeyno" Kihara was gone in 3rd place ($4,464).

It was now 2:11pm ET and the final two players were so closely stacked - 943K for Mati312 and 916K for ugritaly - that they were essentially tied with the stakes at 12K/24K. They were also both relatively deep-stacked at close to 40 big bets each, setting up a long heads-up match. For an hour and 15 minutes they battled and ugritaly seemed to be getting the better of the match as the stakes got higher. Then Mati312 rattled off five big wins in six pots on the 24K/48K level that changed the course of the game, showing down three big Badugis and betting ugritaly out of the hand on the other two.

Those losses set ugritaly far enough back that even winning a 336K-chip pot a few hands afterward was only enough to bring him to within a 2-to-1 deficit. Down the stretch he continued to win pots, but mostly the ones that Mati312 didn't bother to chase. The rest of the time, the Team Online pro was showing down winners and grinding ugritaly's stack further down. Finally he wound up all-in for less than one big bet, losing yet another slim showdown between three-card hands: ugritaly had 6-2-A, and Mati312 closed out the tournament with 3-2-A.

It was a fitting first COOP win for the high-stakes Team Online player known as "Mr. Badugi," who topped his previous best SCOOP finish with his first PokerStars MTT win in the game that gave him his name. Congratulations to him for adding a tournament title to all his cash game success!

SCOOP-23-M ($215 FL Badugi) results
Entrants: 186
Total prize pool: $37,200
Places paid: 24

1. Team Online's Matthias "Mati312" Brandner (Austria) $8,091
2. Sal "ugritaly" Fazzino (Australia) $5,766
3. Team Online's Naoya "nkeyno" Kihara (Japan) $4,464
4. The TJS (United Kingdom) $3,162
5. gmd68 (Germany) $2,046
6. CAE$AR_08 (Bulgaria) $1,674
7. Premove (Russia) $1,302
8. aDrENalin710 (Russia) $1,023