Some players seem to do better in certain kinds of tournament structures than others, but if SCOOP final table appearances are anything to go by, SP3WMONKEY isn't one of them. The player from the Netherlands last appeared at a SCOOP final table playing Zoom Poker back in 2013. Returning today for a Special Edition of the Thursday Thrill, SP3WMONKEY played a dozen 30-minute levels of poker before emerging with a first career COOP title.
1,559 players turned out for this Progressive Super-Knockout no-limit hold'em tournament, building a $1,559,000 prize pool split down the middle between cash for the top 180 finishers and bounties for everyone who knocked someone else out. After 19 levels of play they called it quits for the night.
The Day 2 restart came around at 1:00pm ET and the 181 players who survived Day 1 all waited to see who would be the unlucky player who waited overnight to bust on the bubble. Ansimans from the Netherlands took that dubious honor, and everybody else left in the tournament collected a minimum of $1,013.35, plus any bounties they'd claimed along the way.
The long march to the final table was on, and it was a long one indeed. It took just over 10 hours to take the field down to nine players:
Seat 1: OMGACEACEACE (1,142,379 in chips)
Seat 2: gusmaa (2,201,953 in chips)
Seat 3: Divved (2,351,695 in chips)
Seat 4: Olorionek (307,064 in chips)
Seat 5: MkMyWishFish (2,508,772 in chips)
Seat 6: mican_ludi (2,779,567 in chips)
Seat 7: Vladimir "vovtroy" Troyanovskiy (817,283 in chips)
Seat 8: SP3WMONKEY (2,957,838 in chips)
Seat 9: benatias (523,449 in chips)
The first player to go was Israel's benatias. After losing a pot with [Qd] [Qc] to Olorionek's [Ks] [Kh] to keep the WCOOP 2011 Triple Shootout winner in the game, benatias was left with about 11 big blinds. After paying another round of blinds and seeing them coming back around, benatias opened all-in under the gun with [As] [Jh]. gusmaa called with [Kh] [Qd], caught top pair on the flop, and dodged a gutshot draw on the [Ks] [6d] [Td] [9d] [Jc] board to win the 465K-chip pot. After finishing 9th in last week's SCOOP 2016 Super Tuesday Special Edition, benatias also exited this event in 9th place ($8,106.80 + $6,035.15 in bounties).
Nearly an hour and a half would pass before the next knockout, no big surprise given that four stacks were working with 100 big blinds and not even the shorties had less than 20. MkMyWishFish survived in that stretch with [Ts] [Tc] against SP3WMONKEY's [7c] [7h] after both players hit sets, doubling to 3.48M, and Olorionek did the same with [Ac] [Kd] against Divved's [Ah] [Jh] for 994K.
Aside from those situations, nobody had to put their stack on the line again until 12:52am ET, when Olorionek made the fourth bet before the flop all-in for 383K, holding [9h] [9s]. That was a big favorite against the [7d] [7s] of three-better-turned-caller Divved, but then Divved made quads on the [7c] [7h] [8d] flop. The [8h] turn and [Qd] river didn't make runner-runner quads for Olorionek, and the Polish player was gone in 8th place ($14,810.50 + $6,921.86 in bounties).
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After all that waiting for a knockout, the next one took just one more hand to arrive. Vladimir "vovtroy" Troyanovskiy, making his fifth SCOOP 2016 final table after a win back in SCOOP 2014, was in the big blind for 36K and called MkMyWishFish's button min-raise with [Jd] [9h] to see a [Qs] [8d] [3h] flop. He check-called a bet there, both players checked turn [Kd] turn, and then vovtroy made a straight with the [Td] river. He bet and called all-in when MkMyWishFish raised, but the Israeli player had made a flush on the same card with [Qd] [2d]. WIth that, vovtroy left in 7th place ($22,605.50 + $8,097,65 in bounties).
Following the five-minute break, only two more minutes would pass before gusmaa hit the rail. The Brazilian player, a finalist during SCOOP 2015, WCOOP 2013, and WCOOP 2015, had [9c] [9s] in the big blind and moved all-in for 1.18M over the top of mican_ludi's 78K-chip opening raise. The Serbian player called with [Ah] [Qc] and turned a Broadway straight on the [Kh] [8h] [Jd] [Ts] [Qh] board, and gusmaa was out in 6th place ($30,400.50 + $16,738.25 in bounties).
Five ways to Saturday
Those three quick knockouts left just five players in the hunt:
Seat 1: OMGACEACEACE (2,176,704 in chips)
Seat 3: Divved (2,505,827 in chips)
Seat 5: MkMyWishFish (4,917,938 in chips)
Seat 6: mican_ludi (4,921,323 in chips)
Seat 8: SP3WMONKEY (1,068,208 in chips)
The 18K/36K/4.5K blinds and antes meant nobody was under real pressure, and everybody got their chance to shine. Accordingly, it would be almost another hour and a half before another player hit the rail.
mican_ludi set the tone early and jumped into a big lead after playing a 148-big-blind pot against MkMyWishFish. The Israeli player, a Super Tuesday finalist in 2013, originally flat-called on the button after Divved raised to 77K in the cutoff, but MkMyWishFish ended up being the only caller of a small blind re-raise to 318K from mican_ludi. The action went bet-raise-call for 539K on the [Ad] [4d] [8h] flop before both players checked the [5s] turn. mican_ludi check-called a nearly pot-sized bet of 1.75M from MkMyWishFish on the [3d] river and showed down [9d] [6d] for the diamond flush - plenty good enough to beat MkMyWishFish's bluff with [Ts] [9s].
MkMyWishFish got it back half an hour later, surviving all-in with [Qc] [Tc] agaisnt mican_ludi's [Ah] [7h] to get back to 4.54M. But over the hour that followed, seemingly every big pot the Israeli played took part in ended up in the opponent's stack. MkMyWishFish would finally reach the end of the line at 2:27am ET after opening under the gun with [Ks] [Jc] and catching middle pair. Playing it safe out of position to mican_ludi, MkMyWishFish eneded up falling behind when the [5c] turn made a set for mican_ludi. The rest of the chips went in, the [8h] river changed nothing, and MkMyWishFish departed in 5th place ($38,195.50 + $17,810.52 in bounties).
At only 47 minutes, the wait for the next knockout was relatively short by this table's standard. The pots were distributed around the table, but mican_ludi continued to find a way to win the big ones. Taking the initiative and rivering two pair with [8s] [4h] for a 3.2M-chip win against Divved helped the Serbian player get out in front of the field again. Losses to Divved and previous SCOOP Zoom PLO finalist SP3WMONKEY kept both of those players alive, though still short-stacked compared to the leader, but SP3WMONKEY found a way back into contention soon afterward.
Under the gun with [Ad] [5d], SP3WMONKEY opened for 132K. past Super Tuesday runner-up and WCOOP finalist OMGACEACEACE re-raised to 330K on the button, then called after SP3WMONKEY made it four bets and 720K to go. Both players had ample reason to get their chips in on the [5s] [2c] [5c] flop, putting SP3WMONKEY at risk with three of a kind. The flush draw didn't come home for OMGACEACEACE after the [3h] turn and [7d] river, giving SP3WMONKEY the 5.3M-chip pot.
Left with seven big blinds, OMGACEACEACE defended the big blind an orbit later with [Jd] [7c] against a mican_ludi button raise and caught top pair on the [4c] [5s] [Jc] flop. The chips went in there, but mican_ludi walked away the winner with top pair after the [Ad] turn and [Qh] river, and OMGACEACEACE left in 4th place ($53,006 + $6,234.37 in bounties).
More than four hours of final table play were already in the books and with blinds and antes at 30K/60K/7.5K, three players still remained. mican_ludi led the way with 8.06M, with SP3WMONKEY (5.41M) and Divved (2.11M) trailing. With so much room to play, it took two players holding pocket pairs to force the action on the final hand before the break leading up to 4am ET. Divved had [4h] [4s] on the button, mican_ludi [Tc] [Th] in the small blind, and all Divved's chips went in as the fourth bet before the flop. mican_ludi called, the tens held up on the [Kd] [9c] [As] [Js] [Jc] board, and Divved exited in 3rd place ($71,714 + $6,554.68 in bounties).
Two more players, one more hour
Heads-up play began with mican_ludi holding 112 big blinds and SP3WMONKEY 82, portending a long match - even more so when they didn't want to talk about making a deal. SP3WMONKEY said the bounty on mican_ludi was enough extra to play for - and at more than $48,000 total, the half the SP3WMONKEY would claim for a knockout would be worth more than a 7th-place finish had been.
SP3WMONKEY turned up the heat early, winning the first nine pots, including one worth 2.94M after flopping bottom two pair on the button with [Th] [7s]. mican_ludi struck back six hands later with a pot that brought the two players' stacks within two big blinds of each other, and that settled them into a rhythm where there was action on most hands but the pots didn't get out of control.
A stretch where mican_ludi only took down four out of 27 pots, including four losses between 1.94 and 2.49M, turned things in SP3WMONKEY's favor, and the Dutch player used the advantage to apply maximum pressure. Down to 17 big blinds, mican_ludi was able to double up with [Kd] [4d] against SP3WMONKEY's [Ah] [Th] and eventually climb back as high as 5.4M, but the deficit would prove too much to overcome. The Serbian player finally moved all-in with [Kc] [8c] at 5:09am ET, and SP3WMONKEY called with [Ac] [8d]. The [9s] 5c] [5d] [6d] [Jh] changed nothing, and a marathon final table finally came to its conclusion.
mican_ludi's knockout-strewn path to the runner-up position left the Serbian player with a $95,099 cash from the regular prize pool and another $48,602.46 in bounties. SP3WMONKEY, meanwhile, earned $130,215.58 for first place plus another $31,228.96 in bounties - about three-quarters of which came just for besting mican_ludi heads-up. At six hours and one minute, the final table accounted for three out of every eight minutes played on Day 2 of this tournament. It was a true endurance test and both players earned every dollar of their prizes.
SCOOP-41-H ($1,050 NL Hold'em, Progressive Super KO, Thursday Thrill SE) results
Entrants: 1,559
Total prize pool: $1,559,000 ($779,500 regular prize pool, $779,500 bounty prize pool)
Places paid: 180
1. SP3WMONKEY (Netherlands) $130,215.58 + $31,228.96 in bounties
2. mican_ludi (Serbia) $95,099 + $48,602.46 in bounties
3. Divved (Poland) $71,714 + $6,554.68 in bounties
4. OMGACEACEACE (Poland) $53,006 + $6,234.37 in bounties
5. MkMyWishFish (Israel) $38,195.50 + $17,810.52 in bounties
6. gusmaa (Brazil) $30,400.50 + $16,738.25 in bounties
7. Vladimir "vovtroy" Troyanovskiy (Russia) $22,605.50 + $8,097,65 in bounties
8. Olorionek (Poland) $14,810.50 + $6,921.86 in bounties
9. benatias (Israel) $8,106.80 + $6,035.15 in bounties
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