Repeat Offenders
2007-03-19 09:27:18
By: Gene Bromberg
Those who say that poker isn't a game of skill should consider the familiar names that keep popping up on our tournament leaderboards. A month ago our Sunday $200,000 Guaranteed Tournament was won by highroller48, and last night he made a deep run through the field of 952 players and finished 13th. Are we to assume that he's merely luckier than other folks?
And what should we say about the well-known online player who plays at UB under the name Maria Nuccia? Back on December 10th all he did was win the Main Event of the UltimateBet Online Championships. And during last night's $200,000 Guaranteed Tournament he made yet another final table. Could it be that he's just an oustanding player, or is it more logical to think that, oh, he ate a leprauchaun for breakfast on St. Patrick's Day?
There wasn't a big deviation in the stack-size among the players are the final table, but we quickly saw the field whittled down. TheMasterJ33 started off as our chip leader but couldn't get any traction and was eliminated in 5th place when his pocket nines were outflopped by One Above All's A-J. Spiker123 was next to leave thanks to two tough hands he lost against Fish991. After calling a re-raise Fish991 moved all-in after a flop of J-9-4. Spiker123 thought a long while before calling with A-9, only to see Fish881 turn over QQ. A hand later Spiker123 got all his money in with pocket fours against Fish991's pocket kings, and even though a king flopped and seemingly sealed Spiker123's fate, he picked up a flush draw on the turn and hopes of dealing a brutal suckout. But no club fell on the river, and Spiker123 was out in 4th spot.
With more than half the chips in play Fish991 went on the offensive and seized a few pots before One Above All took a stand with an all-in re-raise. It didn't take Fish991 long to call with Ad-10h, and it proved to be a good call as One Above All turned over Ac-8h. Neither player improved their hand and One Above All was sent to the rail in 3rd place.
If Maria Nuccia wanted to add another victory to his UBOC Main Event win he had his work cut out for him, trailing in chips as he was by $2.1 million to $277,000. And we learned on the very first hand of heads-up play that it wasn't meant to be. Maria Nuccia pushed all-in and Fish991 insta-called with As-Qs. Maria Nuccia turned over Jd-7h. The flop of 10s-8h-6c gave Maria Nuccia a gutshot draw, but he didn't get the little bit of good luck he needed on the turn and river and that was that. Maria Nuccia took home $26,500 as our runner-up, but it was Fish991 who took the title and the $45,000 first prize.
;)
The rest of our final table, and how they were paid out, can be found...here:
- 3rd-- One Above All $18,000
- 4th-- spiker123 $13,100
- 5th-- TheMasterJ33 $10,500
- 6th-- Froggy_06 $8,500
- 7th-- Kingdan23 $6,500
- 8th-- bad_egg $4,500
- 9th-- Buckohfive $3,400
- 10th-- bassman64 $2,000
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