When the WSOP’s scheduling committee named Event #78 the "$1,000 Turbo 6-Handed" they were not kidding around. It lived up to the “Turbo” in its title by powering through a field of 1,910 entries in about seven hours.
The 1,910 entries made for $1,814,500 in the prize pool.
However, where the event entirely failed to live up to the scheduling committee’s expectations was in the other half of its name. Thanks to GGPoker’s inveterately buttery fingers, the first few rounds were not played “6-Handed” after all. Instead, they were played with eight to a table.
The error was caught early. But GGPoker clearly didn’t fancy having to fork out another $1.8 million in tournament vouchers.
So, they did some hand-waving and thus was born the 2020 WSOP’s $1,000 Turbo 8-Handed event.
$259,842 of the prize pool went to Adnan "Bolazar" Hacialioglu for his first-place finish. He also went home with a WSOP bracelet — no doubt with the top loop of the engraved “6” hastily closed with an ice pick — and a package for the WSOP Europe.
On your marks, get set, go
After the error on the tournament's birth certificate, things went relatively smoothly post-partum.
Chip stacks started at 25,000. Every player had up to three entries. The eight-minute blind levels made for fast-paced action and it didn’t take long for some players to have all three bullets in play.
The Brazilian soccer pro Neymar Jr. joined the fray in the first hour. No doubt he was looking to blow off some steam after Paris St. Germain lost 1-nil in the UEFA Champion’s League last week.
By level 10 (700/1,400/180), Jeff Gross was topping out the leaderboard with 168,571 in chips. Conor Beresford was high up on the list too, with 122,689 in chips.
A few levels later Neymar Jr. was out and late reg was closing.
Chance Kornuth found himself making a good run, but a few big pots tangling with Lars "schimmelgodx" Kamphues sent him to the rail just before level 20. The bubble burst just a few minutes after that.
The pace picked up again. Everyone was getting paid now — and stacks were getting short. From the money bubble to the final table bubble took just a couple of hours.
Final Table
Going into the final table, Hacialioglu was not in great shape. His stack was the second smallest at 2.6 million. With the blinds at 90k/180k/20k, he had just 14.8 big blinds to play with. It was push or fold time.
He went with push.
By the time the table was down to seven, Hacialioglu had moved to the middle of the pack with 6.7 million. The chip leader Niko "niNohR" Koop had almost twice that. But not for long.
Despite doubling up Tim "TMay420" West a couple of times, Hacialioglu had enough chips left to do some damage. So, when Hacialioglu managed to get his stack in against Koop and win, he found himself boosted up to second place.
Koop, on the other hand, ended up taking 4th place ($103,893).
By the time the action was heads-up, Hacialioglu had a 3-1 chip lead over his opponent Robin "Kabuzzi" Berggren. Despite the relatively deep stacks at this point, both players got it in with A-Q v. 7-7. A classic coin flip, in which Hacialioglu’s A-Q won out.
Berggren, to his chagrin, took home $197,274 and the disappointment of being an also-ran.
Final table results
1st - Adnan "Bolazar" Hacialioglu - $259,842
2nd - Robin "Kabuzzi" Berggren - $197,274
3rd - Tim "TMay420" West - $143,162
4th - Niko "niNohR" Koop - $103,893
5th - Jargo "bungakat" Alavali - $79,395
6th - Andriy "smbcall911" Lyubovetskiy - $54,714
7th - Soo Jo "choleeek89" Kim - $39,706
8th - Tuen "FudGuy" Bui - $28,814
9th - Johan "Mr-Water99" Haugen - $20,911
