A small but high-class field turned out for the first high non Hold’em event of this year’s SCOOP series, the $2,100 Badugi event. And it was third time lucky for Rodrigo “caprioli” Caprioli. The 31-year-old SuperNova elite from Sao Paolo who recently final tabled the EPT Grand Final had previously made three SCOOP final tables: in 2009, 2010 (which he won), and 2011. Now he has one in 2012 and another SCOOP watch to go along with it.
For a overview of how Badugi works please click here.
From one bubble to another
This is limit poker, so this was not about all-ins – “This badugi tourney is fast and furious. Only 3 hours and already TWO eliminations,” noted Phil Galfond on Twitter.
However the pace of eliminations did pick-up and the 57 players, who created a prize pool of $114,000, was reduced to eight after just under ten hours of play when caprioli knocked out FabSoul in ninth.
The counts at the start of the final table were as follows:
Seat 1: BrynKenney 7,585
Seat 2: Peshka1502 16,145
Seat 3: shaundeeb 6,170
Seat 4: paulgees81 49,715
Seat 5: Exclusive 76,060
Seat 6: TheHood 28,300
Seat 7: Zimmy86 43,575
Seat 8: caprioli 57,450
But the joy at making the final table was tempered by the fact that another more important bubble was now in effect – the money bubble. Yes, cruel as it may sound one of the eight finalists would be leaving with nothing apart from thoughts of what might have been.
With stakes at 1,000 – 2,000, both BrynKenney and shaundeeb had less than four big bets each and were looking the most likely to fall foul of the $5,130 bubble. They both survived all-ins and a blind increase, but would bust within two minutes of each other.
Highlighting the thin line between success and failure in poker it was BrynKenney who was on the wrong end of this ‘flip’ as he did indeed bubble, with Noah ‘Exclusive’ Boeken doing the damage.
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Money Money Money
As mentioned above, it wouldn’t take long for the money places to begin to be filled. Just three hands later shaundeeb was sent to the rail. Again Exclusive played the role of executioner as Deeb’s king high badugi was no match for Exlcusive’s 5♦ 4♣ 3♥ Aâ™ , the third best possible Badugi.
Down to half a dozen
The exits showed no sign of abating as just four minutes and three hands elapsed between shaundeeb’s elimination in sixth and Peshka1502’s exit in fifth. The damage had been done in the previous hand where he’d committed 75% of his stack before folding to a bet after the final draw. In his exit hand he was all-in for 3,845 pre-flop and got a call from paulgees81. Pehska1502 stood pat from the off whilst paulgees81 discarded one card on each of three draws. And it was third time the charm for the Canadian as he showed down 8â™ 5♦ 4♣ 2♥ to just pip Pehska’s 9♦ 6♣ 5â™ 3♥ . Still $6,270 was a fine reward for his efforts.
Gees that’s unlucky
When you get dealt queens or kings in hold’em and run them into a better pocket pair you pretty much suck it up and accept it’s not your day, that’s tantamount to what did for paulgees81 in fifth place.
He got dealt a nine-high badugi off the bat (odds of 88 to 1) but ran into an opponent – Exclusive – who had been dealt an eight high badugi (160 to 1). If it could’ve all gone in pre-flop it may well have done. But, as it was betting was capped pre-flop, the rest went in over the three draws before paulgees81 got the bad news that he’d been well and truly coolered out of the tournament winning $8,270.
Four play
Four handed play would last for over 30 minutes and see Zimmy86 open up a huge lead as he accumulated over half the chips in play. Much of this was at the expense of Exclusive and indeed the long time chip leader would exit in fourth place when he made a queen high Badugi, only for caprioli to make a seven high Badugi to bust him and end his hopes of a second SCOOP title.
Deal?
With the stacks looking like this:
TheHood 75,200
Zimmy86 152,590
caprioli 57,210
It was chip leader Zimmy86 who typed ‘deal’ into the chat box, no replies were forthcoming though and play continued without interruption. And during three-handed play both opponents would reel the leader in. In fact by the time the stakes had reached 2,000 – 4,000 the stacks were almost even:
TheHood 96,000
Zimmy86 94,790
caprioli 94,210
caprioli: LETS CHOP IT?
caprioli: EVEN?
Typed caprioli into the chatbox, again this was as far as discussions would get as caprioli got no takers.
Given that the stacks were deep in comparison to the blinds it was no surprise that three handed play would take some time. In fact it would take nearly two hours to reach heads-up play. During this portion of play it was caprioli who would take charge whilst it would not go so good for TheHood or Zimmy86.
It seemed like TheHood was destined to finish third, but he mounted more than one comeback from fewer than five big bets and instead it was Zimmy86 who would succumb first. Down to just three-big bets, Zimmy86 was all-in before the third and final draw, both he and caprioli discarded one card, but at showdown Zimmy86 would be one card short as he could only muster a three-card badugi with 7♦ 3♣ 2♦ 2♥ whilst caprioli had a better three-card badugi with 9♣ 5♥ 3♠2♣ .
Heads-Up
Going into heads-up play caprioli had a commanding lead of 256,000 versus 29,000 and it wouldn’t take long for it to prove insurmountable. 24 hands were all he needed to grind down TheHood to claim the title and first prize of $39,900.
On the final hand TheHood was down to just 5,500 (less than one big bet). On the first draw he discarded one card, whilst caprioli took two. On the second the roles were reversed, caprioli changed one, whilst TheHood took two. And this pattern repeated itself on the final draw. Come showdown caprioli had a 3-card 5,3,2 as he showed 6♣ 5♠3♦ 2♣ , whilst TheHood had a 3-card K,5,4 with K♠6♥ 5♦ 4♥ and he finished second for $25,650.
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1st – caprioli, Brazil, $39,900
2nd -TheHood, Australia, $25,650
3rd – Zimmy86, United Kingdom, $17,100
4th – Exclusive, Netherlands, $11,400
5th – paulgees81, Canada, $8,550
6th – Peshka1502, Spain, $6,270
7th – shaundeeb, Mexico, $5,130
8th – BrynKenney, Spain
The Spring Championship of Online Poker home page contains all of the tournament results, schedule of upcoming events and their satellites, and a leaderboard for the 2012 Series.
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