After an epic tournament that rolled on late into the night, poker pro Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul came from behind to win SCOOP 2010 Event 31 for nearly $191K after agreeing to a deal with only three players remaining.
The event, a 1 Rebuy 1 Add-on No Limit Hold’em tournament, attracted dozens of the best players online. With 236 players, 155 rebuys and 167 add-ons for $2100 each, the high tier of the event boasted a bloated $1,116,000 prize pool. The winner, Kevin Saul, is a famous player best known for beating Mike Matusow heads-up to win the WPT Bellagio Cup III. The medium level tournament went to kuufer for $124K and fwilliams007 won the low tier for $66K – an excellent win for a $22 buy-in. Combined, the total prize pool was just under $2.35 million.
Other big name finishers for the high event included PokerStars Pro Vanessa “LadyMaverick” Rousso (20th), govshark2 (11th), EDWARDHOPPER (12th), KingKobeMVP (13th), shaundeeb (14th), AABenjaminAA (95th), and Jorj95 (105th).
Saul, playing as “BeL0WaB0Ve”, entered the late stages of the tournament at a big disadvantage because of his small stack. However, he skillfully raked in enough chips to bring himself to a competitive level by the final table. However, he faced very strong competition from these opponents:
cdbr3799: 144,050 chips
caio_pimenta: 358,954 chips
SexSeen: 123,499 chips
BrynKenney: 177,901 chips
sinergio: 62,595 chips
calamitas: 222,946 chips
bad_beat_bud: 98,695 chips
squee451: 357,795 chips
BeL0WaB0Ve: 127,565 chips
Everything was looking rosy for caio_pimenta. He had a history of big tournament wins, including the Sunday Million, and was the chip leader on the final table. He had also been the chip leader or close to it for most of the second half of the tournament. However, he faltered against the other chip leader, squee451, when he opened preflop and then check/called three streets, including a big river shove. The board was 6s 3h Td Js 3c. caio_pimenta showed Ts9c for two pair, Tens and Threes, while squee451 won with 6d6c for a full house. Pimenta finished 9th place.
The next two kills went to Saul (BoLOWaBOVe), who had been steadily building up his stack. He busted BrynKenney by calling pocket fives against AQo, then shoved against SexSeen with pocket queens against pocket tens. After more action, sinergio busted out after shoving the remainder of his tiny stack. Five players remained, but not for long.
Squee451 gained a big lead when he went called an all-in pot between him, calamitas and bad_beat_bud. Squee451 held AsQd, bad_beat_bud was behind with AhJh, and calamitas had the worst hand with KdJc. The board fell 3c 7h 9c 4s As. Squee451 won the pot, and only three players remained.
At this point, the three finalists held an extremely long discussion and finally agreed on a deal. Squee451 (977K chips) won $198K, BeL0WaB0Ve (507K chips) won $175K, and cdbr3799 (189K chips) got away with $150K, leaving $21K left to play for.
Cdbr3799 soon lost with AJs against Kevin Saul’s pocket aces, giving BeL0WaB0Ve the chip lead. From there, squee451 retook the lead, but lost after two big pots. In the first, BeL0WaB0Ve bet/called the 7s 8c 5d flop, checked the Qs turn, and bet the 8s river to show Jc8d for a set. Squee451 mucked. On the second, BeL0WaB0Ve bet a 7c 4c 6d flop and bet again on the 9h river. Squee451 shoved, and he called to reveal a Kc9s for top pair against Qh4h for bottom pair. The river was Kd, giving Saul a clean victory.
Despite being near the top of the standings for most of the game, squee451 could not defeat the short stacked Kevin Saul. However, he actually won a larger prize than Saul, leaving with $198K instead of $191K.