Scott Hempel Wins WSOP Online $1,000 Turbo DeepStack Event

On March 4, 2020 Scott Hempel was one of six players to make the final table of the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic main event. Play halted in that tournament with six remaining, with the plan being to resume action at the end of the month in Las Vegas, with the WPT’s cameras recording action for television. That WPT final table has been indefinitely postponed, but Hempel has managed to win a major poker title in the interim despite the shutdown of the live tournament poker scene that has resulted from the COVID-19 outbreak. In the early hours of Sunday, July 19 Hempel emerged victorious in the 2020 World Series of Poker Online $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em turbo deepstack eight-max event, earning his first WSOP gold bracelet and the top prize of $181,060.

This was Hemple’s second straight final-table showing in this series, as he finished in seventh place in the $777 buy-in event that took place the previous day for $22,250. Hemple has now cashed for $203,310 during this series while playing under the screen name ‘BudLightLime’. The Chicago native, now based out of Canada, primarily focuses on online play.

This tournament attracted a total of 697 unique players, who collectively made 290 re-entries to see the final prize pool swell to $937,650. The top 143 finishers made the money, with a min-cash being worth $1,594. Notable players to make deep runs included Roland ‘prngls12’ Israelashvili (133rd – $1,594), champion of the kickoff event of this series Jonathan ‘art.vandelay’Dokler (107th – $1,688), all-time WSOP bracelet leader Phil ‘Lumestackin’ Hellmuth (97th – $1,782), event #12 champion Ryan ‘joeyisamush’ Depaulo (84th – $1,969), Max ‘MaxSparrow’ Pescatori (52nd – $3,094), Erica ‘huckcheevers’ Lindgren (38th – $3,563.07), 2013 WSOP main event champion Ryan ‘bitc0in’ Riess (32nd – $4,219), and Dave ‘dunningkrugr’ Alfa (9th – $12,845), who had also finished in ninth place in the WSOP bracelet event held just a day earlier.

When the final table was set it was WSOP bracelet winner Barry ‘puigmyfriend’ Hutter who held the chip lead, while Hempel entered the final eight in fourth chip position. The first elimination at the final table took place when Matthew ‘EarvinMagic’ Parry shoved from the cutoff for around 7 big blinds with K5. Daniel ‘IntoTheRiver’ Fischer called with A8 from the big blind and made a pair of aces on the turn. That was good enough by the end to earn him the pot and the knockout. Parry cashed for $16,784 as the eighth-place finisher.

Harrison ‘harrisond33’ Dobin was the next to fall. He ran A-K into the pocket kings of Hempel preflop and failed to come from behind. Dobin was sent to the rail with $22,222 as the seventh-place finisher. Landon ‘ActionDealer’ Tice’s run in this event concluded shortly after his K9 got called by the AQ of Andrew ‘GoatMaster’ Melillo. Tice spike a King on the flop to take the lead in the hand, but Melillo turned an ace-high straight to lock up the pot and leave Tice drawing dead. He was left with a single big blind after that hand, and was knocked out in sixth place moments later ($29,817).

Despite coming into the final table with the lead, Hutter was the next to be eliminated. He called the button shove of Hempel with AQ from the big blind. He was ahead of Hempel’s J10, until the K87K9 runout gave Hempel a straight on the river. Hutter cashed for $40,694 as the fifth-place finisher.

With that Hempel’s stack surpassed 18 million in chips, with the next largest stack of roughly 8.4 million belonging to Myles ‘Shipthemoney’ Kotler. Hempel used his lead to apply pressure to the shorter stacks, and in doing so was able to rack up a number of knockouts. In the next big preflop confrontation Hempel shoved from under the gun with 65 and Fischer called from the big blind with KQ. Hempel hit a flush on the turn to send Fischer home with $56,259. He then shoved 103 from the small blind and received a call from Melillo, who held J8 in the big blind. Hempel flopped trip tens and held from there to take roughly a 5:3 chip lead into heads-up play against Kotler.

The final showdown lasted roughly 20 minutes, including a five-minute scheduled break. In the final hand Hempel picked up 1010 on the button and moved all-in. Kotler called with K10 for his stack of approximately ten big blinds. The J86JA runout locked up the pot and the title for Hempel, while Kotler took home $111,955 for his second-place showing.

Here is a look at the payouts awarded at the final table:

Hempel photo via World Poker Tour / Joe Giron.

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