You are standing around a bar chatting with mates about your jobs. One chap whines about his minimum hourly wage. Another just got a pay rise and is quite happy with making $30 an hour. Then you turn to your friend, known as shibonimo, and ask him what the pay is like in his line of work.
“Well, on Sunday I made around $30,000 an hour,” he responds.
That’s how quick fortunes are made in a poker tournament series like the TCOOP.
However, on this occasion, things travelled even quicker than usual as Event 19: $215 Sunday Supersonic was a turbo of the hyper variety. To put ‘hyper’ into perspective, what started as 2,924 players became just one in only a couple of hours.
There were no less than 15 Team PokerStars Pros clicking away when this TCOOP event began and not one of them managed to make it into the money. Team PokerStars SportStar Fatima de Melo got the closest, bowing out in 621st place with the top 378 paying.
Once ten players remained it took just moments for Australia’s Stewart “juzlearnin” Scott to be the deemed the final table bubble. juzlearnin got his short stack in preflop with A♦ J♥ and couldn’t stay ahead of the K♣ 4â™ of Canada’s shibonimo on a 7♦ 8♦ 5♥ 8♣ K♥ board.
Final Table lineup
Seat 1: oburnin (1,337,470 in chips)
Seat 2: Komandantes (1,127,108 in chips)
Seat 3: Paul “Paul12907” Allen (993,612 in chips)
Seat 4: David “[Esmone_PY]” Abreu (2,336,860 in chips)
Seat 5: Igor_Novg (408,117 in chips)
Seat 6: Nick “dalsa77” Dallimore (348,516 in chips)
Seat 7: Francisco “Tomatee” Benitez (4,367,104 in chips)
Seat 8: talorm1 (1,824,268 in chips)
Seat 9: shibonimo (1,480,945 in chips)
As is the nature of a hyper-turbo event it’s not too suprising that bustouts started flying as soon as the first hand of the final table with Igor_Novg moving all in preflop with 4♥ 4♣ and running into Paul12907’s J♦ J♣ . Igor_Novg needed help, but instead his opponent flopped a set of jacks and Igor_Novg was eliminated in 9th place collecting $5,239.22.
When the final table begun Tomatee had a commanding chip lead with more than two times his nearest opponent and that lead grew when they sent obunrin home in 8th place. oburnin shoved the chips in with J♦ 10♦ from under the gun only to find Tomatee wake up with A♦ A♣ on the button and when Tomatee flopped a set of aces and oburnin flopped no draws or pair, it was all over with a $8,937.49 score.
[Esmone_PT] then threatened Tomatee for the lead when they eliminated Paul12907 in 7th place to collect $14,484.91. [ESmone_PT] was under the gun when they shoved all in for just over 2 million in chips holding J♥ J♦ . Paul12907 called off their stack of just over 1.5 million holding A♦ J♣ and couldn’t find the cards needed on a 10♦ 4♦ 3♣ Q♦ 7♣ board.
From here the action marched on as dalsa77 doubled up with A♥ Kâ™ against talorm1’s A♦ 10♥ and then talorm1 got the chips back when they doubled up with A♦ 8♥ against dalsa77’s A♥ 5♦ .
Not long after that and Komandantes’ got their chips in preflop with K♣ 4♣ and found no luck against the A♥ 10♦ of shibonimo on a A♦ 8â™ 6♦ J♦ 7♦ board run out. For the 6th place effort, Komandantes pocketed $20,648.70
It was at this point that dalsa77 suggested a deal and the tournament was paused.
Here’s how they stacked up at the time:
[Esmone_PT] – 4,886,073
Tomatee – 4,348,574
shibonimo – 2,836,053
talorm1 – 1,550,472
dalsa77 – 998,828
The players, with the help of Team PokerStars Pro Online George ‘jorj95’ Lind, got both the ICM and chip-chop numbers and after a bit of back and forth banter, it was clear that the big stacks wanted nothing but chip-chop and the shorter stacks were keen on the ICM.
It was [Esmone_PT] who was the most aggressive in the deal undertaking, but even they managed to compromise a little after first saying “chip-chop or nothing” and then easing to suggest they would take a number that was a little more than ICM, but not quite the chip-chop. [Esmone_PT] was wanting $70,000 exactly and that the other players would then split the remainder of prize pool via the ICM method.
The deal was close to being done but then Tomatee drew some inspiration from [Esmone_PT] and also demanded a little more than ICM, wanting at least $65,000.
Lind helped prepare the new prize pool numbers, all agreed and the cards were once again being dealt with the TCOOP title and $8,000 extra on the line for the eventual champion.
Following the deal, dalsa77 quickly doubled through [Esmone_PT] with K♦ 10â™ in the small blind against [Esmone_PT]’s J♦ 5â™ and shortly after those two watched on as talorm1 was eliminated in 5th place when their Q♣ 10♣ all in preflop couldn’t compete with Tomatee’s A♦ Jâ™ on a A♥ 2â™ 5♥ Aâ™ 10â™ board. As per the deal, talorm took home $45,839.39.
Just four hands later and the largest pot of the tournament would take place.
It began with dalsa77 open shoving for 1,297,656 from under the gun. shibonimo then moved all in for 2,961,053 from the small blind and [Esmone_PT] called from the big blind to put two players at risk.
[Esmone_PT]: J♠J♥
dalsa77: Q♥ J♣
shibonimo: 3♥ 3♣
[Esmone_PT] had the best hand preflop and was looking good to send two players home and usher in heads-up play. However, the 3♠8♦ 6♣ 8♣ 7♣ board appeared on the screen and shibonimo had scooped a big triple up with a full house, while [Esmone_PT] was left with just over 1.5 million in chips and dalsa77 was eliminated in 4th place, collecting $39,512.35 as per the deal.
The very next hand saw shibonimo raise to 530,000 from the button and Tomatee shove for 5,499,046 from the big blind blind holding A♦ 10♠. shibonimo called it off with a dominating A♠J♣ and with the board running out J♦ 3♦ 4♥ 9♥ K♦ , Tomatee was eliminated in 3rd place and as per the deal received $65,000.
Heads-up counts:
shibonimo – 13,143,808
[ESmone_PT] – 1,476,192
Heads-up began with shibonimo having a huge chip lead and it would take just three hands for the tournament to be all over.
[Esmone_PT] shoved the button with Q♣ J♣ and shibonimo called it off with K♠Q♠. [Esmone_PT] was in bad shape and the news got no better on a J♥ A♠8♥ 10♦ J♦ board as shibonimo made a Broadwasy straight for the victory!
For their runner-up effort, [Esmone_PT] received the $70,000 they demanded in the deal, while shibonimo earned the extra $8,000 to bring the total winnings to $64,410.
TCOOP-19: $215 Sunday Supersonic [Hyper-Turbo] – $400K Guaranteed
Entrants: 2,924
Prize Pool: $616,379
Places Paid: 378
1. shibonimo (Canada) – $64,410.96*
2. David “[Esmone_PY]” Abreu (Portugal) – $70,000.00*
3. Francisco “Tomatee” Benitez (Uruguay) – $65,000.00*
4. Nick “dalsa77” Dallimore (Australia) – $39,512.35*
5. Talorm1 (Israel) – $45,839.39*
6. Komandantes (Russia) – $20,648.70
7. Paul “Paul12907” Allen (United Kindom) – $14,484.91
8. Oburnin (China) – $8,937.49
9. Igor_Novg (Russia) – $5,239.22
* denotes five-handed deal that left $8,000 for the winner
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