Most of the tournaments on the SCOOP schedule in 2016 are two-day events that pause to give everyone time to rest before coming back for another poker marathon. At just six hours and 45 minutes, Event #50-H was a deviation from the norm, one that led to a very quick first career SCOOP title against some highly accomplished competition for Austria's SuchADegen.
A 6-Max Progressive Super-Knockout tournament that started with three-minute levels and slowly worked up to 15 minutes apiece, Event #50-H drew a 567-player field with a $1,134,000 prize pool split evenly between cash for the top 66 finishers and bounties on everyone's heads. Thanks to the aggressive tournament structure and the extra incentive to go for the knockout, it took less than five hours to progress to the final table. By then the blinds and antes were at 10K/20K/2.5K and these six players were the last with a shot at the title:
Seat 1: Trueteller (1,108,810 in chips)
Seat 2: Jason "jakoon1985" Koon (633,979 in chips)
Seat 3: SuchADegen (944,030 in chips)
Seat 4: Bryn "BrynKenney" Kenney (1,426,878 in chips)
Seat 5: xPastorcitox (627,667 in chips)
Seat 6: FaceStealer (928,636 in chips)
Despite the quick pace to reach the final table, nobody was working with less than 30 big blinds and the blind levels, which had begun the tournament at three minute apiece, had long since leveled out at 15 minutes each. There was plenty of room to play poker, and they did just that for the next two hours and two minutes.
The bulk of that final table time would be spent four-handed, and xPastorcitox wouldn't last long enough to be part of it. Having dropped about 10 big blinds in the first half hour of play, the SCOOP 2015-Medium finalist came in for a raise in the cutoff with [Js] [9s] and fired three barrels on the [5c] [5d] [Tc] flop, [Qs] turn, and [6c] river after Jason "jakoon1985" Koon called from the big blind. Koon called down the whole way with [Qc] [Jd], taking the 888K-chip pot with a turned pair of queens and knocking out xPastorcitox in 6th place ($18,144) with $7,867.15 in bounties.
Koon, a SCOOP 2009 champ and Sunday Warm-Up winner with two wins in the Super Tuesday who finished 7th in the $21,000 High Roller event last week, was now in third place with 1.26M chips, just one big blind behind Bryn Kenney. But eight minutes later he himself would be gone after back-to-back losses to FaceStealer.
The seeds of Jason Koon's departure were sown when SuchADegen doubled through FaceStealer with [Tc] [Ts] against [Ks] [Jd]. Then Koon took that first loss on the very next hand after opening with [Ah] [Kc], calling FaceStealer's all-in bet, and losing the coin flip to [6c] [6d] on a [Js] [2h] [9d] [8s] [3d].
That put FaceStealer, a three-time finalist in the Super Tuesday with past WCOOP and SCOOP final table appearances, a little under four big blinds ahead of Koon's 790K. FaceStealer had the button on the next hand and opened for the minimum with [Ad] [Qh], then called when Koon jammed with [Ah] [4h] in the big blind. Koon missed his flush draw on the river of the [Jh] [6c] [6d] [5h] [Kc] board, exiting in 5th place ($28,350) with $18,371.09 in bounties.
The next 45 minutes would be spent four-handed. After that wild three-hand sequence, FaceStealer had the chip lead at 1.69M chips, but Trueteller and Bryn Kenney were about eight big blinds back and SuchADegen was in last but still in the seven-figure range. Trueteller won the first monster pot after calling all-in from the big blind with [Ad] [Qd] and flopping a flush, topping small-blind raiser FaceStealer's [Ah] [7s] for the 1.8M-chip pot. Four more small wins shortly after that, plus an 892K-chip pot taken from Kenney without contest on the turn, made Trueteller the leader with 2.6M.
FaceStealer survived another all-in with [Ad] [6s] to button-raising SuchADegen's [8h] [5h], climbing back to 1.17M. That put Bryn Kenney, FaceStealer, and SuchADegen all within three big blinds of one another, but Kenney would be the one to fall behind. After raising on the button with [Jd] [Td] and calling Trueteller's big-blind re-raise to 190K, Kenney and Trueteller would both check the [7d] [8c] [Kd] [5c] [4h] board all the way to the river. Kenney fired 266K with the busted combo draw but lost when Trueteller called with an unimproved [Ah] [Qc].
That loss left PCA 2016 Super High Roller, SCOOP 2010, SCOOP 2014, and Super Tuesday champ with 776K in chips, which he called off three hands later in the big blind with [Ks] [Ts] after SuchADegen open-shoved on the button. Both had a flush after the board came [3d] [2s] [5s] [6s] [2h], but the Austrian player had the nuts, bringing BrynKenney's third SCOOP 2016 final table appearance to its end in 4th place ($39,690) with $28,281.24 in bounties.
Three-handed play kicked off with Trueteller in the lead, SuchADegen about 10 big blinds back, and FaceStealer holding about half the chips that SuchADegen had. The balance of the pots played was tilting toward Trueteller and away from SuchADegen. Then Trueteller raised to 125K from the small blind and called [Ah] [Js] after the Austrian player moved all-in from the big blind with [5c] [5d]. Trueteller paired on the turn with the board reading [7c] [8d] [7s] [Jc], but SuchADegen hit a full house with the [5s] on the river.
That win both kept SuchADegen alive and gave the Austrian player the chip lead, a perfect illustration of just how wide-open the tournament still was. Then Trueteller retook the lead with a stretch of six consecutive wins that reduced the field to two players.
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Down to 602K after the first five consecutive pots that Trueteller had won, FaceStealer open-shoved on the button with [Ad] [6s]. Trueteller called with [Ah] [7s], paired a seven on the [Td] [7h] [9h] flop, and dodged FaceStealer's gutshot draw through the [3d] turn and [Jc] river to take the 1.27M-chip pot. That sent FaceStealer to the rail in 3rd place ($58,117.50) with $25,271.47 in bounties.
Trueteller had the edge heads-up with 3.4M chips to SuchADegen's 2.2M and extended the lead further by winning pots worth 755K and 639K in their first three hands against each other. Then SuchADegen opened on the button with [Kc] [Tc] and called after Trueteller jammed in the big blind with [As] [6c]. A small underdog before the flop, SuchADegen made a pair of kings on the [3c] [4d] [Kd] [9h] [7d] board to double to 3.2M chips.
SuchADegen now had 53 big blinds to Trueteller's 41, but a 1.4M-chip win for the Russian player eight hands later. The lead would only change one more time, though, and when it did it would leave Trueteller extremely short-stacked. SuchADegen opened the hand in question for 154K on the button with [9s] [8h] and Trueteller called, bringing the [5s] [9h] [4c] flop. SuchADegen bet 200K when checked to, then called two bets from Trueteller, the first a check-raise to 422K on the flop and the last an all-in move. Trueteller was an 84.1-percent favorite to win the hand with [Qh] [9c], but SuchADegen pulled out the win with a straight after the [6h] hit the river.
That 5.2M-chip pot gave SuchADegen an advantage of more than 10-to-1, and the Austrian raised every hand until Trueteller ended up moving in on the button for 152K with [Kd] [4h]. SuchADegen called with [7c] [5h] and won the pots with aces and fives after the board came [3h] [5s] [Ah] [Td] [Ad], bringing the tournament to a close.
Trueteller earned $79,380 as the runner-up, plus another $15,510.73 in bounties, an excellent showing after taking 4th place in Event #44-H this afternoon. And SuchADegen made a splash, picking up the champions watch, the $107,730 top prize, and another $41,645.97 in bounties. Congratulations to SuchADegen players for outlasting some highly accomplished players on route to a first career SCOOP win!
SCOOP-50-H ($2,100 NL Hold'em, 6-Max, Progressive Super KO) results
Entrants: 567
Total prize pool: $1,134,000 ($567,000 regular prize pool, $567,000 bounty prize pool)
Places paid: 66
1. SuchADegen (Austria) $107,730 + $41,645.97 in bounties
2. Trueteller (Russia) $79,380 + $15,510.73 in bounties
3. FaceStealer (Costa Rica) $58,117.50 + $25,271.47 in bounties
4. Bryn "BrynKenney" Kenney (Mexico) $39,690 + $28,281.24 in bounties
5. Jason "jakoon1985" Koon (Canada) $28,350 + $18,371.09 in bounties
6. xPastorcitox (Argentina) $18,144 + $7,867.15 in bounties
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