It looked like a terrible mismatch. Poker Triple Crown winner versus a guy with no cashes in a tournament greater than a $500 buy-in. Young pro versus senior financier. Expect to be here versus happy to be here. But this is poker and the beauty of it is that given a bit of skill and a bit of luck, anyone can win on any given day. That is what happened early Monday morning when 71-year old Herbert Tapscott won his first ever gold bracelet, besting Gavin Griffin heads-up in the $1,500 Omaha Hi-Low Split 8-or-Better event at the 2012 World Series of Poker.
This was a record-setting event , as at 967 entrants, it was the largest live Omaha High-Low Split tournament of all time. It was scheduled to last three days, but partly because of its size, it required three hours of a fourth day to complete. The previous record was set last year in the same event, which fielded 925 players.
Going into the final table, Tapscott was in excellent shape, holding 579,000 chips, good for second place. It was really anybody’s game, though, six of the nine players had stacks weighing in at over 500,000. And with such names as Griffin, Can Kim Hua, John Racener, and Thayer Rasmussen at the table, whoever won was going to earn it.
Though his initial final table stack was strong, it was an entirely different story when the dinner break rolled around about two and half hours into play. At that point, he was hanging on for dear life. With just 65,000 chips, he only had one orbit left before he was down to the felt, as blinds were 20,000/40,000. Immediately after dinner, however, he won a three-way pot with the nut-flush and no possible low hand available, taking his stack up to 225,000. He fell back again to 75,000, but once again tripled up, this time to 260,000.
One more time Tapscott fell back and one more time he picked himself up off the mat. Third time was a charm, it seemed. From there, Tapscott soared. First to 800,000, then over a million, then 1.5 million. Then, after a brief detour back under a million, Tapscott charged over the 2.5 million chip mark.
When heads-up play finally began, it was Herbert Tapscott with the chip lead over Gavin Griffin, 2.65 million to 1.705 million. And for a while, it looked like Tapscott was going to cruise, extending his lead after just a short time to 3.5 million to 900,000. But Griffin rallied, taking a small edge at about 2:00am Vegas time. He got the lead up to 2-to-1 but Tapscott was able to reverse it and not look back.
Just a few minutes before the two remaining players would have been required to call it a night, the final hand of the tournament was dealt. Griffin raised pre-flop to 200,000 and Tapscott called. Griffin was all-in regardless of the flop for his final 65,000 and Tapscott made the call upon seeing Q♥-8♦-A♦. With Q♣-4♥-T♠-7♠, Tapscott had a pair of Queens, but Griffin held A♠-2♦-3♠-6♥ for a pair of Aces plus the nut-low draw. The turn 9♦ and the river J♥ ended up giving Tapscott a straight and killed Griffin’s shot at the low half of the pot, making Herbert Tapscott a WSOP bracelet winner and $264,400 richer.
2012 WSOP Event #8: $1,500 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better – Final Table Results
1. Herbert Tapscott – $264,400
2. Gavin Griffin – $163,625
3. Ashly Butler – $102,373
4. Can Kim Hua – $74,306
5. Michael Kleist – $54,855
6. John Racener – $41,121
7. Thayer Rasmussen – $31,278
8. Raymond Davis – $24,111
9. Bryan Jolly – $18,837
