This year’s Turbo Championship of Online Poker is off to a fast start. It will be a fast middle and fast finish, too, because, well, that’s what the TCOOP is all about, satisfying tournament players’ need for speed with rapid structures featuring a variety of stakes and games. Event #2, the $55 no-limit Omaha Hi/Lo event, was part of today’s opening slate, and it only took a little over four hours for Poland’s cladarth to earn the title and a $17,783.12 first prize.

There were 2,258 players in this one, together building a prize pool of $112,900 that exceeded the event’s $100K guarantee. No-limit Omaha Hi/Lo is already an action-filled game, and with the tournament’s five-minute levels it didn’t take long to get the preliminaries out of the way and for the dividing up of that prize pool to begin.

They were only about two hours into the event when the field had been cut down to 288 players and the money bubble burst, at which point TIETYMM had catapulted to lead by a wide margin. But there would be much movement at the top of the leaderboard as the field was further winnowed.

First satoshi2104 surged out in front, then former Super Tuesday winner karakrud took a turn at the top as the field shrunk to less than 100. 10jacker next hijacked the lead for a time before trading it back and forth with karakrud through the tourney’s three-hour mark.

satoshi2014 (26th) and TIETYMM (25th) both saw their tourney runs ending shortly thereafter, each cashing for $474.18. And Sam “SamSquid” Grafton was also among those still around for the final few tables before getting knocked out in 21st for $609.66.

Sam “SamSquid” Grafton

A little later kfasdfa was getting knocked out in 12th when karakrud’s stack became depleted and soon karakrud was out as well in 11th. They were joined by 10th-place finisher Al Magellan, with all three picking up $1,016.10 for their efforts. tipp2000 (ninth), bialy331 (eighth), and Sweety2007 (seventh) soon followed them to the rail — each earning $1,580.60 — and just about three-and-a-half hours after the tournament had started the final table was already underway.

Seat 1: 10jacker (Iceland) — 2,353,324
Seat 2: alexandrapau (Canada) — 2,606,431
Seat 3: cladarth (Poland) — 2,916,803
Seat 4: DarthJules (Russia) — 1,305,872
Seat 5: aabas (Lebanon) — 687,474
Seat 6: fleim333 (Russia) — 1,420,096

Both cladarth and alexandrapau had pushed ahead of 10jacker, then about 10 minutes after the final table began it was alexandrapau adding more chips after knocking aabas out in sixth.

aabas’s demise came after committing a stack of about 610,000 (just over 10 big blinds) with A♦ 9♣ 5♠ 4♠ versus alexandrapau’s A♣ 8♦ 6♦ 4♥ , then watching a flop come all diamonds to give alexandraupau what became a scoop-worthy flush with no possible low.

Play continued, then fleim333 earned a huge double-up through alexandrapau to take over the chip lead. But alexandrapau — a one-time SCOOP winner who took down a $1,050 PLO 1R+1A turbo event in 2011 — soon bounced back, earning a second final-table knockout by ending DarthJules’s tournament in fifth place.

Down to less than 12 big blinds, DarthJules had shoved with A♥ 8♣ 6♥ 3♠ and got called by alexandrapau holding A♦ 8♥ 7♠ 2♦ . A 9♦ J♥ K♠ 10♦ 9♠ board then gave alexandrapau a straight to send DarthJules railward.

Amid fleeting chatbox references to a possible deal, play pushed onward toward the four-hour mark with both 10jacker and cladarth surviving all-ins by winning split pots.

But then alexandrapau become short-stacked, and after pushing a sub-6 BB stack with K♥ K♣ Q♠ 6♠ and getting reraise-isolated by cladarth who held A♥ Q♥ 10♦ 5♦ , a board containing three hearts gave cladarth a winner to knock out alexandrapau in fourth.

Just a few minutes later fleim333 was raising the minimum to 280,000 from the button, 10jacker was shoving all in for just over 1.7 million from the small blind, and fleim333 was there with a call. 10jacker held A♠ 10♣ 8♣ 2♦ and would make a straight after the board came 10♠ Q♦ K♥ J♦ Q♣ . But that board-pairing river queen made a full house for fleim333 who held A♣ Q♥ 10♦ 3♥ , and they were down to two.

Heads-up began with cladarth in front with about 6.1 million versus fleim333’s nearly 5.2 million. They’d stay close to one another over the next couple of dozen hands, then cladarth began to put some distance between them, chipping up over 8.5 million as fleim333 fell back under 2.7 million.

Then with the blinds at 100,000/200,000, fleim333 open-shoved all in from the button and cladarth made the call.

cladarth: A♦ K♦ J♦ J♣
fleim333: 8♥ 7♠ 4♣ 2♣

cladarth was looking for big cards while fleim333 had ideas of scooping should the next five stay small. The 7♥ 8♠ K♠ flop was promising for fleim333, good for two pair plus that low draw. But the turn was the 10♠ and river the J♠ , that final card making a set for cladarth and stopping fleim333 one spot shy of the win.

Congratulations to cladarth who in four hours and 11 minutes managed to top a field of 2,258 to turn a $55 buy-in into a nice $17,783.12 first prize.

TCOOP-02 ($55 No-Limit Omaha Hi/Lo, 6-Max) results
Entrants: 2,258
Prize pool: $112,900.00
Places paid: 288

1. cladarth (Poland) — $17,783.12
2. fleim333 (Russia) — $13,265.75
3. 10jacker (Iceland) — $9,878.75
4. alexandrapau (Canada) — $6,491.75
5. DarthJules (Russia) — $4,233.75
6. aabas (Lebanon) — $2,368.64

Things are only getting started in the 50-event Turbo Championship of Online Poker. Check the TCOOP page for the full schedule.

Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

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