The $111,111 One Drop High Rollers Event may be taking center stage right now at the 2013 World Series of Poker, but there are other tournaments to be played and other bracelets to be won. One of those tournaments, Event #48: $2,500 Six-Handed Limit Hold’em, concluded Friday night with 27-year old poker pro Marco Johnson winning his first bracelet and just over $200,000.
Some of you may be thinking, “Marco Johnson…that name sounds familiar.” Well, if you have been following online poker for the last few years, you might know him better by his online handle, “CrazyMarco.” Johnson was a central figure in the Absolute Poker cheating scandal that was uncovered in 2007. He finished second in a $1,000 tournament in September of that year, losing his final hand to someone named “POTRIPPER” when POTRIPPER made an insane call with just Ten-high against CrazyMarco’s flush draw.
There were already rumblings that POTRIPPER could be cheating, so Johnson e-mailed Absolute Poker to ask for the hand history for review. AP accidentally sent him an enormous Excel file that contained hand histories for the first two and half hours of the tournament, including all the hole cards. It also showed when players entered and exited tables, as well as their IP addresses. Long story short, the hand histories made it obvious that POTRIPPER had knowledge of everybody’s hole cards, as he made perfect plays every hand, and the rest of the information began to point to the involvement of someone inside AP. It was the beginning of the biggest scandal in online poker pre-Black Friday.
At the live poker tables, Marco Johnson has done very well, but he had not quite been able to close the deal until last night. He had cashed five times previously at the 2013 WSOP and 17 times total in his career. On three previous occasions, including once this summer, Johnson was heads-up for a bracelet, only to fall short. This time, though, was a different story.
Johnson entered heads-up play against Jeff Thompson with a 1.6 million to 900,000 chip lead. He immediately got to work, using pocket Kings to scoop a nice pot. A few minutes later, his stack was up to 2.1 million. And less than a half hour into heads-up play, it was all over. Thompson raised pre-flop, Johnson re-raised, and Thompson called. Johnson bet the 5-8-3 flop and Thompson called once more. Johnson stayed aggressive when a 7 was dealt on the turn and this time Thompson took a moment to consider his action. He had barely over a single raise remaining. He was basically committed. Thus, Thompson decided to raise, at which point Johnson put him all-in. When the cards were flipped over, it was revealed that Thompson had started with the better hand, A-6, but was out-flopped by Johnson, who had A-5. Thompson actually had quite a few outs, but none of them came to be and Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson had finally capture his first bracelet.
2013 World Series of Poker Event #48: $2,500 Six-Handed Limit Hold’em – Final Table Results
1. Marco Johnson – $206,796
2. Jeff Thompson – $127,801
3. Juha Helppi – $82,956
4. Danny Worchol – $55,457
5. Michael Schiffman – $38,095
6. Maria Ho – $26,858
