Herbert Tapscott Wins His First WSOP Bracelet At 71
The 2012 World Series Of Poker is holding all the headlines nowadays and for good reason too. There have been some nice tournaments so far with amazing plays and surprise winners. The most recent tournament was Event #8, $1,500 Split-8 or Better, which started on Friday in the Rio and had more than 967 players that signed up for the event. By the end of the first day, only 220 players were at the tables and the tournament finished on Monday morning. It was the largest live Omaha Hi-Lo Split Tournament ever that took more than the scheduled three days to be completed.
The final table that started with Tapscott in second place with 579,000 chips and at this point, it was still anybody’s game. Nine players remained, six of them had more than 500,000 in chips, and big names such as John Racener and Can Kim Hua were still fighting for the bracelet. Although Tapscott was looking good when the day started, he didn’t hold on to his position for long. After just two and a half hours, he was very close to being eliminated with just 65,000 chips; the blinds at this point were already very high and his turn was soon to come to pay 40,000 for the big blind.
The table took a dinner break and once the players came back, everything was about to change. Tapscott came back refreshed and won a three way pot with a flush and no low hand available which gave him a much more comfortable stack of 225,000 chips. It didn’t take long for the stack to go back down to 75,000 but he again managed to triple up from two of the players and get back to 260,000 chips. The roller-coaster ride wasn’t yet over for Tapscott as he dropped once again by the end of the final table and got back up.
After the third down and up, things just started getting better and better for the star player and his stack was quickly increasing. Other players weren’t so lucky and the heads-up match began between Tapscott and Gavin Griffin; 2.65 million against 1.705 million. It was the battle between the Poker Triple Crown winner and the player that was eager to prove himself. Although it didn’t seem fair, the match was a very interesting one and poker can always have surprising results given the right set of skills and just a little bit of luck.
Tapscott seemed to dominate the heads-up match and he quickly got 3.5 million while Griffin only had 900,000 chips. The latter managed to come back and get in the lead with a 2:1 stack but Tapscott was already becoming an expert of coming back from a small stack and he did just that on Monday morning.
With only a few minutes remaining of play for the night, the final hand came along. After Griffin raised pre-flop for the majority of his stack and Tapscott called, it was an all-in for Gavin no matter what came on the flop as he only had 65,000 chips in front of him. As the hand was dealt, Tapscott had a straight while Griffin’s chance at a low was spoiled.
Herbert Tapscott got the $264,400 first prize and the WSOP bracelet, the first one in his career, at the age of 71. Gavin Griffin only got $163,625 but it was a tournament to remember with the most players ever and a nice heads-up match despite the difference in experience between the two players. The World Series Of Poker is a great way to see the top professionals and the new amateurs going head-to-head in a battle for one of the most appreciated awards in the industry, a WSOP bracelet.
