Prior to the Event #86 $1,000 Super Turbo No-Limit Hold’em, Michael McCauley had never cashed a World Series of Poker event. The turbo tournament was just the second tournament he has played during this series along with a daily deep stack event. McCauley certainly made the most of his first WSOP cash, outlasting a field of 1,025 players to win the tournament’s top prize of $161,384 and his first career gold bracelet.
Such is the beauty of the super turbo format. In events with deep stacks and long levels, professional poker players end up at the top far more often than not. That's because of the amount of skill and endurance required to navigate all the way to the final table. But in super turbo tournaments, the action is fast and furious with an emphasis on short-stack play and all-in hands. McCauley proved to be up to the task on Sunday, making good decisions throughout the one-day event and winning the flips when he needed to.
Final table action
2021 WSOP Player of the Year front-runner Josh Arieh made it to the unofficial final table of 10 players with the second shortest stack remaining in the field. Arieh moved all-in for his last remaining four big blinds with king-four offsuit and was unable to improve against the pocket sixes of Andrew Wilson, setting the official final table at nine remaining players.
Dara O’Kearney and Marc Lomeo joined Arieh on the rail in short order leaving seven players remaining in the tournament. Two-time WSOP bracelet winner Yuval Bronshtein led the pack with 4,165,000 of the chips in play. McCauley had the fourth largest remaining stack with 2.7 million left. Bronshtein’s chip lead represented only 21 big blinds, with the blinds at 100,000 / 200,000 and an ante of 200,000.
McCauley would go on to pick up six of the last seven knockouts at the final table. The key hand came in a three-way all-in as Filippo Ragone moved his short stack into the middle with queen-jack offsuit, McCauley re-jammed with ace-king offsuit and Luigi Curcio called off the remainder of his chips with pocket tens. Curcio was in the lead heading to the river as the board ran out eight-three-two-four, but a five on the final street gave McCauley a straight. He scooped the massive pot and earned a solid pay jump in the process with a double-elimination.
The eventual $1,000 Super Turbo event winner knocked out each of the last three players in the tournament as well, getting the chips all-in with the best hand in all three spots and managing to hold up in each of them. McCauley stated after the tournament that he was originally planning on playing in a $2/$5 cash game before deciding at the last minute to play this event instead. That decision turned out to be a very good one for him.
Final Table Payouts
1. Michael McCauley: $161,384
2. Andrew Wilson: $99,742
3. Neel Joshi: $72,031
4. Yuval Bronshtein: $52,679
5. Rajvir Dua: $39,022
6. Filippo Ragone: $29,282
7. Luigi Curcio: $22,263
8. Marc Lomeo: $17,153
9. Dara O'Kearney: $13,395
Featured Image Credit: Melissa Haereiti, Twitter - WSOP
