In a shootout tournament, every table is the final table. Only one player out of the table will survive and move on to the next round and it takes a special kind of player to keep his focus throughout to emerge victorious. If the table draw isn't optimal, there's no choice but to buckle down as it's never going to break. It's a test of knowing all the potential situations and in Event 13, the $1,500 no-limit hold 'em shootout, Andrew Badecker successfully navigated his way through the three shootout stages to win his first bracelet and $369,371.
"Honestly I came out pretty under bankrolled," Badecker said of his WSOP expectations. "I was going to play three events and had to sell some action so I could get into all three. I was going to see how the first few events went and if I ran good play more, and I guess that happened. I drove out from Connecticut and was planning on staying here in Vegas an indefinite amount of time."
Badecker, 23, made the move to Las Vegas and was greatly affected by the recent industry indictments on Black Friday. He had been playing professionally for the last five years - first online, then live.
"It was obviously really upsetting for me and all my friends," he said regarding Black Friday. "For the first time in four years, I actually worried about would I really be able to [play poker] anymore, because I always had online to fall back on. I had given some consideration to moving out of the country, which I still am because I really miss it."
The first round of the shootout was played nine-handed. The second round was 10-handed and the final round began eight handed, but included two tables. On that final day, out of the 16 players remaining, there were five previous WSOP champions as well as some extremely tough young players. Badecker, who know has more than half a million in life earnings and four WSOP cashes, felt comfortable in that latter category.
"We're definitely the younger people with an online base, were starting to come into the scene," he said. "But I think it was really just a matter of time and the law of averages, poker's still poker if it's online of live. If someone a good player and they play a lot of events they are eventfully going to win one. I do think we are all holding our own."
As the nine-handed final table was reached, there were four previous bracelet winners in contention - David Pham, Vitaly Lunkin Dan Kelly and Eric Cajelais. With four players remaining, each of those champions had been eliminated. Jonathan Spinks finished fourth and made his second WSOP final table of the series.
Other notable finishers included 2010 WSOP Player of the Year Frank Kassela (13th), Eric Baldwin (T-16) and Daniel Negreanu (T-16).
Below are the complete results of Event 13 at the 2011 World Series of Poker:
Event 13: No-limit hold 'em shootout
Buy-in: $1,500
Entries: 1,440
Prize pool: $1,944,000
Players in the money: 160
1. Andrew Badecker ($369,371)
2. Robbie Verspui ($228,334)
3. Daniel Makowsky ($151,379)
4. Jonathan Spinks ($108,358)
5. Erik Cajelais ($79,315)
6. Dan Kelly ($58,903)
7. Vitaly Lunkin ($44,362)
8. Joseph Webber ($33,864)
9. David Pham ($26,185)
10. Lars Bonding ($20,586)
11. Robert Smith ($20,586)
12. Andrew Pantling ($20,586)
13. Frank Kassela ($16,407)
14. David Robinson ($16,407)
15. Eric Yates ($16,407)
16. Daniel Fischer ($13,238)
17. Carter Swidler ($4,998)
18. Frank Rusnak ($4,998)
19. Mark Weil ($4,998)
20. Jonathan Plens ($4,998)
21. Amir Lehavot ($4,998)
22. Jean-Paul Pasqualini ($4,998)
23. Andrew Glass ($4,998)
24. Mark Dickstein ($4,998)
25. Taylor Paur ($4,998)
26. Franco Cupello ($4,998)
27. Huichen Kuo ($4,998)
28. Kenneth Weiner ($4,998)
29. Annand Ramdin ($4,998)
30. Amit Makhija ($4,998)
31. Noah Sandler ($4,998)
32. Emanuel Fialla ($4,998)
33. Kenneth Auker ($4,998)
34. Matthew Amen ($4,998)
35. Mark Schmid ($4,998)
36. John Graham ($4,998)
37. Peter Mavro ($4,998)
38. Jack Ellwood ($4,998)
39. Erion Islamay ($4,998)
40. Robert Stevanovski ($4,998)
41. Maxwell Greenwood ($4,998)
42. Eric Baldwin ($4,998)
43. Giorgio Medici ($4,998)
44. Michael Capener ($4,998)
45. Robert Perelman ($4,998)
46. Scott Montgomery ($4,998)
47. Robert Suer ($4,998)
48. Michael Finstein ($4,998)
49. Robert Georato ($4,998)
50. Paul Volpe ($4,998)
51. Brian Hansen ($4,998)
52. Michael DeMichele ($4,998)
53. Jason Deutsch ($4,998)
54. Gary Goad ($4,998)
55. Daniel Nicewander ($4,998)
56. Blair Hinkle ($4,998)
57. Theo Tran ($4,998)
58. Jacob Bazeley ($4,998)
59. Daniel Negreanu ($4,998)
60. Yosuke Sekiya ($4,998)
61. Robert Thompson ($4,998)
62. Thomas McCormick ($4,998)
63. Matthew Schulte ($4,998)
64. Max Pescatori ($4,998)
65. Thayer Rasmussen ($4,998)
66. Michael Musich ($4,998)
67. William Heupel ($4,998)
68. Blancy Mitchell ($4,998)
69. Andrew Rosskamm ($4,998)
70. Alexander Livingston ($4,998)
71. James Rumptz ($4,998)
72. David Peters ($4,998)
73. Andrew Youngblood ($4,998)
74. Sam Sten ($4,998)
75. Joe Ebanks ($4,998)
76. Elton Beebe ($4,998)
77. Simeon Naydenov ($4,998)
78. Payman Arjang ($4,998)
79. Brent Hanks ($4,998)
80. Gergely Meszaros ($4,998)
81. Peter Carrillo ($4,998)
82. Brandon Cantu ($4,998)
83. Dan O'Brien ($4,998)
84. Damon Sita ($4,998)
85. Beinan Liu ($4,998)
86. Timothy Clark ($4,998)
87. Allan Puzantyan ($4,998)
88. Benoit Albiges ($4,998)
89. Nam Le ($4,998)
90. Devon Shalmi ($4,998)
91. Valdemar Kwaysser ($4,998)
92. Terrance Eischens ($4,998)
93. Pratyush Buddiga ($4,998)
94. Richard Park ($4,998)
95. Nicholas Ceci ($4,998)
96. Josh Brikis ($4,998)
97. Scott Seiver ($4,998)
98. Tom Hu ($4,998)
99. Shane Giese ($4,998)
100. Brett Richey ($4,998)
101. Ari Goott ($4,998)
102. Lex Veldhuis ($4,998)
103. Soren Kongsgaard ($4,998)
104. Bertrand Grospellier ($4,998)
105. Andrew St Jean ($4,998)
106. Yat Cheng ($4,998)
107. Kevin Grubisic ($4,998)
108. James English ($4,998)
109. Greg Raymer ($4,998)
110. Christopher Klodnicki ($4,998)
111. Joseph Bartholdi ($4,998)
112. Bryce Daifuku ($4,998)
113. Stanislav Barshak ($4,998)
114. Casey Yontz ($4,998)
115. Ryan Leng ($4,998)
116. Alex Smith ($4,998)
117. Kevin Iacofano ($4,998)
118. Matthew Piggott ($4,998)
119. Ryan Julius ($4,998)
120. Ross Myers ($4,998)
121. Kevin Stammen ($4,998)
122. Eddie Sabat ($4,998)
123. Shaun Hartlin ($4,998)
124. Grantland Hillman ($4,998)
125. Uke Dauti ($4,998)
126. Steven van Zadelhoff ($4,998)
127. Christopher Lindh ($4,998)
128. David Hoote ($4,998)
129. Sean Lefort ($4,998)
130. Eric Mizrachi ($4,998)
131. Jennifer Tilly ($4,998)
132. Alexsandr Mozhnyakov ($4,998)
133. Matt Matros ($4,998)
134. Gioi Luong ($4,998)
135. David Randall ($4,998)
136. Michael Cardosa ($4,998)
137. Roberto Romanello ($4,998)
138. Ioan Gheorma ($4,998)
139. Brent Wheeler ($4,998)
140. Robert Mather ($4,998)
141. Lucas Greenwood ($4,998)
142. Alex Melnikow ($4,998)
143. Alan Sass ($4,998)
144. Jean Gaspard ($4,998)
145. Timothy Miles ($4,998)
146. Casey Stewart ($4,998)
147. Christopher Hilleary ($4,998)
148. Michael Rosenthal ($4,998)
149. Dan Lu ($4,998)
150. Jarod Ludemann ($4,998)
151. Alicia Spencer ($4,998)
152. Jason Koon ($4,998)
153. Balazs Biri ($4,998)
154. Filippo Candio ($4,998)
155. Keith Donovan ($4,998)
156. Tommy Felice ($4,998)
157. Barry Donovan ($4,998)
158. Brandon Wong ($4,998)
159. Grayson Ramage ($4,998)
160. Jeff Frerichs ($4,998)