Thursday, 28th March 2024 12:37
Home / Uncategorized / SCOOP 2014: David “Gunslinger3” Bach wins third career SCOOP title in Event #28-H, $2,100 FL Triple Draw 2-7

Players with the bankrolls to play SCOOP High events know that, probabilistically speaking, the more niche events like Triple Draw are the best places to pick up a winner’s watch. The overall skill level of the fields is extremely high, but they are also much smaller than the minimum several hundred players that show up for the typical hold’em tournament.

With it already having been a very good Spring Championship of Online Poker for past SCOOP winners, then, it was no surprise that a murderer’s row of past winners and some of poker’s best and brightest turned up for Event #28-H, a $2,100 Fixed-Limit Triple Draw 2-7 tournament. In all 85 players bought in, building a $170,000 prize pool that more than doubled the guarantee and setting up a top prize of $46,325.

Team PokerStars Pros Ike Haxton (74th place) and Eugene Katchalov (71st) bowed out early. George Danzer (45th) made it nearly halfway in, and ElkY (38th) and Nacho Barbero (26th) even further, but they all came up short of the top 12 spots needed to make the money. So did Team Online’s Naoya “nkeyno” Kihara (19th).

Several other well-known players came close to the cash, including recent SCOOP winner BrynKenney (17th) and bubble finisher Jon “PearlJammer” Turner (13th). Two-time SCOOP champ raidalot managed to make the money (10th, $4,250), and Seb86 took 7th ($6,375) to set up what would prove to be a grueling final table. The stakes were 1,600/3,200 at 8:32 p.m. ET as these six players took their seats:

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Seat 1: David “Gunslinger3” Bach (104,967 in chips)
Seat 2: Christer “lennart” Johansson (28,964 in chips)
Seat 3: aDrENalin710 (66,047 in chips)
Seat 4: Shawn “buck21” Buchanan (22,830 in chips)
Seat 5: kkopghy (127,665 in chips)
Seat 6: Paul “paulgees81” Volpe (74,527 in chips)

Most of the players at the final table had come close to winning a watch earlier in this SCOOP. Johansson was appearing at his third final table of this SCOOP, Volpe his fifth, Bach his third, and Buchanan his second, both in the last two days. Bach also took 10th in #28-M while making it to the final table of this event, one table short of the final but impressive all the same.

Half of the players at the table were also in search of at least a third SCOOP champion’s watch. Both Bach and aDrENalin710 had previously won two SCOOP titles, while Buchanan was in search of his fourth career SCOOP win after taking down Event #27-H yesterday. And Volpe won his first SCOOP title last year.

Buchanan’s quest for SCOOP watch number four was the toughest of them all, given that he started on the shortest stack with just seven big bets, and Johansson’s lot wasn’t much better with just nine big bets. But both players proved resilient in the early going. Each would drop even further back than the short stacks they started with, then climb to two or three times that stack before the first elimination.

The chip lead proved fluid throughout six-handed play. kkopghy came in with it and was highly active in the opening stages of the final table. Before long Bach had taken it over and climbed as high as 152,000 after starting just over 104,000. Then Volpe seized it and traded it with Buchanan for a few hands. In the meantime the stakes rose to 3,000/6,000 and the stacks of both Johansson and aDrENalin710 dropped to less than two big bets.

Christer “lennart” Johansson leaves in 6th place ($8,925)

It took until the 109th hand for the first knockout to arrive. Johansson held more chips than aDrENalin710 to start the hand and they all went in the middle before the first draw after raising in the cutoff and moving in for 9,064 chips after Buchanan made it three bets from the small blind. Both players took two cards on the first draw, and Buchanan took two again on the second, but Johansson took just one. Buchanan stood pat on the third draw, though, while Johansson discarded one for the final time. Then they showed down:

lennart: 2♣ 6♣ Q♦ 8♦ 3♥
buck21: 2♦ 4♦ 6♦ 5♠ J♥

Buchanan’s made jack low on the second draw held up when Johansson caught only a queen on the third draw, preventing the Swede from winning that elusive first SCOOP title. He settled for 6th place ($8,925) instead.

aDrENalin710 ejected in 5th place ($11,900)

The first elimination may have taken a long time, but the second took place only three hands after it. aDrENalin710 was in the big blind for 3,000 chips and called 2,994 before the first draw to play a multi-way pot against Shawn Buchanan and kkopghy.

On the first draw aDrENalin710 took two cards, Buchanan took three, and kkopghy took just one. kkopghy bet 3,000 and Buchanan called. Both aDrENalin710 and Buchanan discarded two, and kkopghy again drew just one. kkopghy bet 6,000 and Buchanan called to bring on the third draw.

Again aDrENalin710 drew two cards, and this time both Buchanan and kkopghy drew one. Those two both checked the action and Buchanan turned up another jack low, this time with 4♥ 8♦ 2♠ J♥ 6♦ . kkopghy mucked, as did aDrENalin710, who exited in 5th place ($11,900).

kkopghy finishes in 4th place ($16,150)

David Bach was now the short stack with 17,517 chips, but the two-time SCOOP champ wasn’t fazed. First he doubled to more than 36,000 after getting all-in after the second draw in a pot against kkopghy and showing down and 8-6 low to beat the Russian player’s 9-8 low.

Nine hands later another 55,500 chips came Bach’s way after beating Paul Volpe heads-up, calling a check-raise after the second draw and taking one card to beat Volpe’s pat hand with an 8-6 low. Two more pots heads-up against kkopghy – worth 58,000 and 60,000 – moved Bach into second place and dropped the Russian into last with 24,748 chips.

The end of the road for kkopghy came on 155th hand of the final table, with the stakes at 4,000/8,000. The Russian player open-raised and then called a third bet from Volpe to get heads-up, then calling bets in position after each draw to get all-in after the third. kkopghy threw away all four cards on the first draw, three cards on the second, and one on the third, while Volpe took two on the first two draws and one on the third before showdown:

paulgees81: 6♠ 9♣ 2♥ 4♣ 7♥
kkopghy: 5♥ 5♦ 10♠ 8♣ 3♥

Volpe’s 9-7 low was good against a pair of fives, and kkopghy was out in 4th place ($16,150).

Paul “paulgees81” Volpe’s tournament ends in 3rd place ($23,800)

The field was now down to three past SCOOP winners with six titles between them. Shawn Buchanan’s and Paul Volpe’s stacks were now both over 162,000 and separated by just 116 chips, while David Bach lurked further back with 86,534.

They battled each other for 36 hands. The stakes rose to 5,000/10,000 and Buchanan moved firmly into the lead with more than 303,000 chips while Bach held mostly steady and Volpe’s stack dropped to less than three big bets.

On the 192nd hand of the final table, Volpe and Bach capped the betting at 20,000 before the first draw, where both players took one card. The last 6,675 of Volpe’s chips then went in the middle, and both players again drew one card. Bach stood pat on the third and Volpe drew one to go to showdown:

Gunslinger3: 4♥ 3♣ 7♣ 8♠ 6♠
paulgees81: 2♠ 6♣ 7♥ 10♥ 5♠

Both players had made hands, but Bach’s 8-7 low beat Volpe’s T-7 low to send him to the rail in 3rd place ($23,800).

Heads-up for the glory

Just going by chip counts, Shawn Buchanan was a favorite to win his fourth SCOOP title as heads-up play began at 11:22 p.m. ET:

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Seat 1: David “Gunslinger3” Bach (126,709 in chips)
Seat 4: Shawn “buck21” Buchanan (298,291 in chips)

After 14 minutes Bach had managed to move into a lead of less than one big bet. At that point the two players agreed in chat to split the remaining prize pool down the middle. They confirmed the deal with support and within 10 minutes were back at play.

With the champion’s watch and cash left on the table, one might have thought that heads-up would be a quick affair. But one would have been very wrong. Both players clearly wanted to burnish their resumes with an additional tournament title, Bach seeking a third career SCOOP win and Buchanan seeking a fourth after winning his third the day before. As a result the heads-up match would go on long enough to account for just over half of the total hands played by the time the tournament reached its conclusion.

It was a back-and-forth affair played over several jumps in stakes, getting as high as 8,000/16,000. Bach was finally able to corner Buchanan on that level by winning back-to-back pots worth 112,000 and 96,000, dropping the three-time champion’s stack to just 30,582. Buchanan won the next two pots without a fight before the draw, then doubled again on the next hand to 85,164 with a 7-6 low to Bach’s T-7 low. But on the 197th hand of heads-up play, Buchanan’s fate was sealed.


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That left Buchanan with just 1,164 chips, which went in from the blind. Both players took one card each on the first two draws of Hand #198 of heads-up. Then Bach stood pat on a 9-6 low and Buchanan drew one to make a Q-9 low, closing the tournament out.

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Three-time SCOOP champion David Bach

Shawn Buchanan might not have won his fourth SCOOP title, but he banked $37,925 and finished in the top two of an event for the second consecutive day. As for David Bach, he earned $39,425 and remains one victory away from becoming the first Stars Grand Slam winner. He lacks a TCOOP title, but his record in big PokerStars tourneys is among the very best: he now has three SCOOP wins, a WCOOP win, and a Sunday Million win to his credit.

SCOOP 28-H, $2,100 Fixed Limit Triple Draw 2-7
Entrants: 85
Prize pool: $170,000
Places paid: 12

1. David “Gunslinger3” Bach (Panama) $39,425*
2. Shawn “buck21” Buchanan (Canada) $37,925*
3. Paul “paulgees81” Volpe (Canada) $23,800
4. kkopghy (Russia) $16,150
5. aDrENalin710 (Russia) $11,900
6. Christer “lennart” Johansson (Sweden) $8,925
*denotes results of a heads-up deal

Jason Kirk is a freelance contributor to PokerStars Blog.

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