By: Ben Wilson
It took 22 hours of play spread over three days, featured 51 eliminations and 178 hands at the final table, but finally US-based Irishman Steve O’Dwyer has been crowned the 2014 ACOP ‘Macau Billionaire Poker’ Super High Roller champion.
O’Dwyer defeated US-pro Ryan Fee in a gruelling 48-hand heads-up battle to take the title, two trophies and the lions share of the HK$48,470,400 (~US$6,260,000) prize pool, earning a cool HK$14,470,400 (US$~1,800,000) for his troubles.
While O’Dwyer began heads-up with more than a 2-1 chip advantage – 36 million to Ryan Fee’s 15 million – Fee did not make it easy for him, closing the gap to within 10 million at one point.
However, O’Dwyer dug deep into his bag of tricks to whittle Fee back down, eventually making an exceptionally tough call to take the title.
With blinds at 300,000/600,000 with a 50,000 running ante the final hand saw Fee, sitting on 13 million, raise it up to 1.3 million from the button. O’Dwyer made the call with the flop falling Qâ™ 9♥ 7♥ . The Irishman check called Fee’s 1.6 million continuation bet and the turn brought the 3♥ , which saw another check from O’Dwyer and a 4-million chip second barrel from Fee, which O’Dwyer eventually called.
The 5♥ river put four hearts on the board and when O’Dwyer checked for a third and final time, Fee moved all-in for exactly 10 million. This sent O’Dwyer into the think tank for a very long time but he did eventually make the call.
At showdown, Fee turned over 6â™ 5♦ for a pair of fives, but that was not enough to beat O’Dwyer’s Q♣ 8♥ eight-high flush, meaning Fee had to settle for the HK$9,950,000 (~US1,300,000) on offer for second place.
When the cheers from the watching rail subsided Las Vegas legend Bobby Baldwin, who had been watching from the side lines, awarded both players trophies, with O’Dwyer receiving two – the gold MBP Super High Roller trophy and a coveted PokerStars LIVE Macau ‘Spadie’.
In total the final table took seven hours to play out to conclusion. The first casualty of the day was the unfortunate Davidi Kitai, who started off as the second shortest stack. Kitai never really got going and after becoming perilously low on chips his short stacked shove was called by high roller specialist Daniel Colman who promptly flopped the nut straight to send the Belgium to the rail.
Unfortunately for Colman this was the high point of his day and he busted shortly afterwards in seventh at the hands of O’Dwyer. Colman ran his suited ace-king into the Irishman’s aces.
Hong Kong’s Kitson Kho was the next casualty, his demise coming at the hands of Pratyush Buddiga who woke up in the big blind with ace-king after Kho moved all in pre-flop with ace-ten.
Despite finishing both previous days with the chip lead and starting the final table with the largest stack Joseph Cheong was unable to go the distance, busting in fifth place after his ace-jack lost a race to Buddiga’s pocket fives.
The fourth and third place bust outs came in quick succession with Connor Drinan and Pratyush Buddiga departing within minutes of each other; Drinan exited in fourth and Buddiga following shortly afterwards in third with all final table payments and places stacking up as follows:
Unique Entrants: 52
Rebuys: 50
Total Prize Pool: HK$48,470,400 (~US$6,260,000)
1st: Steve O’Dwyer – HK$14,050,000 (~US$1,800,000)
2nd: Ryan Fee – HK$9,950,000 (~US$1,300,000)
3rd: Pratyush Buddiga – HK$6,550,000 (~US$845,000)
4th: Connor Drinan – HK$5,100,000 (~US$660,000)
5th: Joseph Cheong – HK$4,100,000 (~US$530,000)
6th: Kitson Kho – HK$3,400,000 (~US$440,000)
7th: Daniel Colman – HK$2,900,000 (~US$375,000)
8th: Davidi Kitai – HK$2,420,400 (~US$315,000)
Click here to read the live reporting blog from the ACOP Super High Roller
The 2014 ACOP MBP Super High Roller proved to be a stellar tournament, boasting a star-studded field and astronomical prize pool.
However, it does not even come close to concluding the ACOP action.
The HK$100,000 Main Event kicks off on Tuesday 4 November at 5:00 p.m. local time and there are still a further four ‘Spadie’ trophies up for grabs after that.
You can follow all the action right here on the PokerStarsBlog throughout the week, so be sure to watch this space!
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