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Home / Uncategorized / SCOOP 2012: Super score for blujays888 in Event 9-Medium, $215 NLHE Super Knockout
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Put “super” in front of just about anything, and it is instantly awesome. Superman. Super Bowl. Super Mario. Super pancho.

So forgive us a little giddy excitement for 2012 SCOOP Event 9-Medium, $215 NLHE (Super Knockout). The premise was simple: $103 to the prize pool; $103 to the bounty pool; $9 to the house. Knock out just one player and you’re basically freerolling the rest of the tournament. It’s a super format that has proved super popular on PokerStars and one that generates super amounts of action.

PokerStars, in its pointy-hatted wisdom, set the prize pool guarantee for Event 9-Medium at $200,000. The players doubled that, as 3,913 registered, creating a prize pool and a bounty pool of $403,000 each. 495 players would be paid, with the winner scheduled to receive $63,279.94.

Pretty super, eh?

Team PokerStars did not have such a super time of it in Event 8-Medium. Only Charlotte “Sjlot” Van Brabander and Team Online player Shane “shaniac” Schleger made the money, and both were eliminated long before the tournament reached the last ten tables.

But there were a few players among the final nine who’d been there before – including a former SCOOP winner.

2012 SCOOP 9-Medium final table.jpg

Seat 1: Eetu100 (1384918 in chips)
Seat 2: die linken (818518 in chips)
Seat 3: 00psiedaisy (2895340 in chips)
Seat 4: thehempy (2619985 in chips)
Seat 5: blujays888 (1968129 in chips)
Seat 6: SenoiPomidor (1747032 in chips)
Seat 7: Bigstar666 (3431761 in chips)
Seat 8: skrilla602 (2204277 in chips)
Seat 9: Cieva (2495040 in chips)

Level 37: blinds 17.5k-35k, ante 4375
Average stack: 2,173,888

Eetu100 was the player who’d won it all before during SCOOP, barreling to the championship of 2009 SCOOP Event 1, $5.50+R NLHE 6-max. Today would not turn out to be Eetu100’s day, however.

Although die linken was the shortest player at the start of the final table, a stack of 21 big blinds still left die linken some options. The problem was that die linken seemed to be quite card dead and, as play continued into the 25k-50k level without a bustout, die linken was blinded down to less than 400k in chips. die linken finally picked up A♣ Qâ™  in the small blind and shoved over an open-raise by blujays888. But die linken’s short stack provided no fold equity, so when blujays888 called with J♥ 9♥ and paired 9s on the turn of a K♣ 8♥ 6♦ 9♦ 4â™  board, it was lights out for die linken in 9th place.

But what goes around comes around, someone once said. blujays888 didn’t hold die linken’s chips for long. In a hand against Cieva and holding pocket kings, blujays888 got Cieva all in on a 10-high flop. Cieva, however, had flopped a set of 10s and secured a double-up after two blanks came off.

Eetu100 was not as fortunate in a similar situation against thehempy and wound up busting in 8th place. Take a look:

RSS readers click through to see replay

A few tough beats pushed thehempy down into short-stack land, with about 555k. Those chips went in the middle pre-flop by opening K♠ J♦ all in from the button. Small blind player blujays888 notched another elimination and another super bounty by calling with A♥ 7♠ and pairing aces, 6♥ Q♥ 4♥ A♠ J♠ .

Ace-seven must have been the hand of the moment for the 50k-100k level. Bigstar666 opened with it from the button, then thought briefly before calling big blind Cieva’s shove for 820k total. Cieva had deuces and was drawing thin after a flop of A♥ 3♣ 7♣ gave Bigstar666 two pair, aces and sevens. Some momentary hope for Cieva – the turn came 4♥ , giving Cieva some straight outs. The river Q♦ dashed those hopes and ended Cieva’s day in 6th place.

From there the table belonged to blujays888 for a long stretch. By the time the 3am break rolled around, blinds were up to 60k-120k and blujays888 had 8.2 million of the 20 million chips in play. 00psiedaisy, fresh off a 40th place finish in Event 8-Medium, sat in 2nd with 3.8 million, followed by SenoiPomidor, Bigstar666 and skrilla602.

And yet right after the break, SenoiPomidor jumped to the head of the class by getting pocket kings all in against blujays888’s ace-queen. A king flopped, giving SenoiPomidor a set, which was more than enough against blujays888’s ace-high after the river. With the big stack in hand, SenoiPomidor offered to deal. 00psiedaisy was not interested in a deal.

Despite being 3rd in chips at that point, 00psiedaisy was the next player eliminated. A series of hands went the wrong way until 00psiedaisy open-shoved K♦ Q♦ for 1.4 million in the 70k-140k level. blujays888, with A♠ Q♠ , made an easy call. A board of Q♥ 9♣ 5♠ 5♦ 2♥ left 00psiedaisy out-pipped and the 5th place finisher.

The deal discussion re-surfaced, and the tournament even paused momentarily. But then someone cancelled the “discuss deal” option, and on the very next hand Bigstar666 was eliminated. An open-shove to 1.8 million with Q♥ 8♥ didn’t fare well when chip leader SenoiPomidor called with pocket jacks. There was only one heart and no queens on a board of 7â™  4♥ K♦ 2♦ 2â™  . Bigstar666 retired tot the rail in 4th place.

The tournament paused – for real this time – to discuss a deal. Yet again, before any discussion could begin, someone canceled the “discuss deal” option. The third time was the charm.

If you’ve watched many final tables on PokerStars, you’ve seen lots of these negotiations. What you don’t usually see is the big stack asking for more money than a chip-chop would provide. But that’s what SenoiPomidor did.

“Yeah that won’t work,” said blujays888. “Let’s resume.”

“Play,” skrilla602 agreed. And so play they did. It was only a few more hands before SenoiPomidor opened to 300k, then called skrilla602’s three-bet shove for 2.6 million. SenoiPomidor’s pocket 9s held against skrilla602’s A♦ K♥ , even spiking an unnecessary 9 on the river to send skrilla602 out of the tournament as the 3rd-place finisher.

“Greedy skrilla,” SenoiPomidor chided.

The tournament paused again for a deal. With the lead, SenoiPomidor’s share of a deal was calculated as $54,963.68. blujays888 would get $51,471.82, and $4,000 would be left for the champion.

“55 and I agree,” said SenoiPomidor. “Ok? Russia poor land.”

blujays888 laughed and agreed.

The two battled late into the night, with stacks that were almost level for long stretches. blujays888 finally seized the momentum by turning an inside straight and getting SenoiPomidor to call a river re-raise to 3 million. That hand seemed to break SenoiPomidor, who began to shove with regularity. blujays888 felt Aâ™  2♦ was strong enough to try to pick off one of those shoves; SenoiPomidor showed Jâ™  4â™  . By the turn, the 5â™  3♦ 7♥ 9â™  board gave SenoiPomidor all sorts of ways to win and stay in the game, but the K♣ was a big old brick. SenoiPomidor bowed out in 2nd place, leaving blujays888 as the champion of Event 9-Medium and earning blujays888 two more Super Knockout bounties – SenoiPomidor’s and his own.

All in all, a super finish for blujays888.

2012 SCOOP Event 9-Medium, $215 NLHE (Super Knockout) results (including two-way deal):

1st: blujays888 ($55,435.50)*
2nd: SenoiPomidor ($55,000.00)*
3rd: skrilla602 ($33,250.71)
4th: Bigstar666 ($23,174.74)
5th: 00psiedaisy ($17,129.15)
6th: Cieva ($13,098.76)
7th: thehempy ($9,068.37)
8th: Eetu100 ($5,037.98)
9th: die linken ($3,224.31)

Today is Day 4 of the 2012 SCOOP. There are still plenty of opportunities for you to grab your share of the millions in guaranteed prizes. Get stats, schedules and check out the leaderboards on the SCOOP homepage.

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