$200 to $25k Hawkins Wins The BOPC Title
Since online poker fi rst arrived in the ’90s, message boards, blogs and BLUFF Magazine have been fi lled with legends of players turning an initial deposit into thousands or even millions of dollars. Whether it’s Alan “BodogAri” Engel, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, or recent November Niner Craig Marquis, we’ve all heard stories, some fact and some fi ction, about players turning their very fi rst $50 deposit into their bankroll for playing all the big Sunday tournaments. Naturally, we wanted to know if this was a feasible outcome for an above average player, or just a miracle reserved for the elite of the elite.
So we sought out some of the best online poker players in the world today and issued a challenge: Here’s two hundred bucks, you’ve got thirty days to make the most of this playing on sit-n-goes and multi-table tournaments. GO!
The fi eld included 25 of the best online poker players we could fi nd and pitted them against each other on Lock Poker for the month of April to see who could build the biggest bankroll from that initial $200. Brett “Gank” Jungblut, Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Chris “Moorman1” Moorman, Jeff “YellowSub86” Williams, Shaun Deeb, Soren Kongsgaard, and 2008 BLUFF Magazine Online Player of the Year David “The Maven” Chicotsky were among the fi eld when play got underway on April 1.
Not only was pride at stake, but the players were playing for a oncein- a-lifetime chance to be featured on the cover of an upcoming issue of BLUFF. The top two fi nishers would also receive seats at an upcoming Dream Team Poker event. Plus, they’d get to keep the money they won – if they won. Despite the starstudded fi eld, once play was under way the event really belonged to one player and one player only.
Brian “Sno0owman” Hawkins turned his $200 into $25,066.74 thanks largely to his success at heads-up sit-n-goes. The next closest competitor was Garrett “gbecks” Beckman who wound up with $4,811.96. Hawkins took risks early on in the Challenge, ignoring proper bankroll management by playing in $25 buy-in heads-up sit-n-goes and working his way up until he was playing the $1,000 buy-in variety. For his victory in the BOPC, Hawkins – who doesn’t turn 21 until August – will be youngest person to ever grace the cover of BLUFF Magazine.
“Brian’s performance in the challenge was phenomenal. He proved himself to be a world class player and we’re proud to feature him on the cover of an upcoming issue,” says Eric Morris, publisher of BLUFF Magazine. “The Challenge itself was an overwhelming success and we’d like thank our partners at Lock Poker for helping make this happen.”
Proving that Hawkins’ win was extraordinary, the fi nal bankroll of the other 24 players adds up to about $10,000, less than half of Hawkins’ result. He not only recorded the Challenge’s single best day, winning $5,263.99 in a 24-hour period, but he also suffered the worst net-loss day after dropping $3,766.01.
Hawkins had a set strategy going in to avoid some of the other players with whom he was competing. “My plan was to avoid the other players in the Challenge. There are just so many fi sh on Lock Poker that I knew I could wait for better spots. Playing versus better players, even if I still have an edge versus them, can still lead to bigger swings and my goal all along was to avoid big downswings as best as I could,” said Hawkins following his win. “Shaun Deeb did sit versus me in a few $500s and $300s and he got the better of me, but he’ll admit he ran pretty hot. I also played gbecks. He was at my $30 rebuy table with about three days left in the Challenge and I had a huge lead on everyone at that point. He made a friendly challenge to play me in a $500 heads-up SNG and he won it, then put a bad beat on me in the $30 rebuy to knock me out. But then I got him back in a $1,000 heads-up SNG and decided to call it a night.”
When the Challenge started Hawkins was confi dent he could pull off the win, but he also recognized that there was a lot of talent in the fi eld and didn’t even consider himself the favorite.
“Honestly at fi rst I thought it would be The Maven. I fi gured he was going to grind fi fteen-hour days everyday and would just run away with it. But I remember after like the fi rst day he played over 150 SNGs and was up just $20 and I saw him registered for a $1 thirty-man SNG. Once I saw that I could tell he wasn’t gonna get anywhere too fast. I think he took too much of a conservative approach,” said Hawkins. “But after the fi rst week it was defi nitely shaundeeb and gbecks that I was worried about. Both were very capable of hitting one of the Sunday majors that Lock Poker has. I would say I was more worried about shaundeeb though, because he is a gambler and didn’t mind taking big shots at heads-up SNGs, which made me a little nervous. Luckily he had a really bad run in the $1,000s and $500s, which knocked him all the way down.”
Despite not coming out on top Chicotsky did manage to set the record for longest play-time over the course of the Challenge with 638 hours as well as the record for most events in one day with 369. One of the stories early on in the Challenge was Jeffrey “Duralast” Romano who qualifi ed after recording the most Frequent Player Points in the month of February. Romano jumped out to a lead in the opening days of the Challenge only to struggle down the stretch. He fi nished up $10.71 after 620 hours of play and a record 969 tournaments played.
