To the Hold’em player, giving Omaha a spin can be an exhilarating experience. First there are the extra two cards, and all the combinations of hands they made. Then there’s the prospect of forecasting what your opponent has, making big hands almost mandatory by the river if you want to come close to raking in a pot. So when you add a fifth card to that, for some five card pot-limit Omaha like in Event #10 of SCOOP 2014, the additional mathematics mean you’re looking for nothing smaller than a straight flush draw on the flop.
Well perhaps it’s not that rigorous, but there’s no mistaking the need for an advanced poker mind when it comes to such a volatile discipline. That was demonstrated in abundance during the final table today of the “Low” flight of event #10, won by stormwinden, who collected a first prize of $9,454.13.
It proved a short-handed final table, with just four players reaching the six-handed final after the first day of play. Here’s how the quartet lined up.
Seat 1. Skitstovel – 12,372,806
Seat 2. Chris “NigDawG” Brammer – 15,749,470
Seat 3. Sendziko – 2,101,072
Seat 6. Stormwinden – 14,836,652
Play started with a joke, or at least Skitstovel’s offer of a deal, which was roundly rejected. After that the first thing to notice was the presence of Chris “NigDawG” Brammer. One of the best players in the online game Brammer, ranked number one in the world as recently as 2012, was in good position. It seemed hard to believe that he had yet to win a ‘COOP title but this was his latest chance.
The second thing to notice was the difference in stack sizes, with three big ones, and one very small one, played by Sendziko.
Sendziko had survived a tense period at the very end of Day 1, watching as first cvetelina80 departed in sixth place, followed by ZekiSwe in fifth.
The night before Cvetelina80 had flopped a set of fours, but Brammer had done the same with a queen-high flush draw. This being 5-card Omaha there were various other draws involved, but it was the flush one that would eventually see cvetelina80 to the rail, coming as it did on the river for Brammer.
ZekiSwe’s departure came 20 minutes later in what had proved a quick fire day. He flopped top pair queens, which became two pairs when an eight landed on the turn. But stormwinden was about to brush him aside, his straight draw completed, also on the turn.
So Sendziko returned today short stacked, but perhaps content to be coming back at all. It would be a brief appearance. Within a minute of the start Sendziko had his chips pushed forward. He could manage kings but they would rule over very little, certainly not the aces and tens of stormwinden. Sendziko then was out in fourth place.
There then followed a period of stalemate. With the big blind at 250,000 the remaining three players were deeply stacked and in no hurry. That said some big pots did materialise.
Skitstovel won a pot worth 7.2 million, forcing Brammer to fold on the turn. Brammer was not long in winning it back however, moving into the chip lead in a pot against stormwinden.
But other than that few pots went much beyond the million mark. Brammer held onto the lead as stormwinden took a turn as the short stack, before doubling through Brammer, which effectively levelled the scores again (Skitstovel’s second attempt at a deal was again good-naturedly rejected).
Skitstovel, named after a common Swedish word said only in impolite company (think a boot full of, well, you know…) would take a turn in the lead shortly after with queens and fives. Stormwinden though was back in front almost immediately with two pairs turned over against Brammer just before the break.
So at the break the situation had changed marginally.
Stormwinden – 17.3 million
Skitstovel – 16.8 million
Brammer – 11.1 million
With the big blind now 600,000 Skitstovel took a big pot from Brammer, forcing him in to the short stack position. But Brammer was not done. He got a double up, then, as his stack was whittled away yet again, he doubled up a second time.
All the while stormwinden was working his stack into a whirlwind, some 26 million chip that would soon prove too much for the scrappy Brammer.
It left stormwinden heads up against Skitstovel, who must have looked at his stack and wondered how on earth he was to overcome such as enormous deficit.
Stormwinden – 39.9 million
Skitstovel – 4.8 million
The short answer was that he wouldn’t. Within two minutes Skitstovel moved his stack in, now worth just 2.1 million, prompting an easy call from stormwinden to win his first SCOOP title.
Congratulations to stormwinden on an impressive performance over two days of play. The full result is below.
SCOOP 10-L: $7.50 PL 5-Card Omaha (6-Max, 1R1A)
Entrants: 4,319 (3,020 rebuys, 1,748 add-ons)
Prize pool: $61,976.34
Places paid: 540
1. stormwinden (Denmark) — $9,454.13
2. Skitstovel (United Kingdom) — $6,817.06
3. Chris “NigDawG” Brammer (United Kingdom) — $5,019.84
4. Sendziko (Lithuania) — $3,253.60
5. ZekiSwe (Sweden) — $1,859.20
6. cvetelina80 (Bulgaria) — $1,065.94
SCOOP has only just started and will roll on with plenty of events in store. Check out the 2014 SCOOP homepage for a full schedule as well as results thus far in the online tournament series.
Stephen Bartley is a PokerStars Blog reporter.
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