|
Mike Banducci Wins 2008 WSOP Event #5
Mike is from Traverse City and he just won $634,736. In the $1000. No Limit Texas Holdem with Rebuys WSOP event !! Mike Banducci is a 23-year-old professional poker player. He was born in Toronto, Ontario (Canada) and went to high school at St. Francis in Traverse City (Northern Michigan). Mike has worked at the Windows restaurant and played hockey with the Bay Reps.
Mike went to Hope College in Holland, Michigan. He started playing poker at a local casino (Leelanau Sands), mostly $4-8 limit Texas Hold ‘em until graduating to higher levels of play.
Mike has played a lot of poker on-line. He started playing on-line since there were no casinos near Hope college. His screen names are worldsgrtest and LuckyLady519. Mike won $22,000 from the on-line Heads-up Worlds Championship in 2006 where he beat Gavin Smith. Banducci symbolizes the new breed of poker player who has learned the game by playing on his computer. He first saw poker on television about five years ago. He never dreamed he would win a gold bracelet. He stated that his early goal was simply to get to the WSOP and someday play in a tournament. Now, he has much more lofty ambitions - including winning another professional poker event.
When things began at the final table of the $1,000 no-limit hold’em rebuy tournament, Michael Banducci held the chip lead, and athough many players would steal that lead periodically during the next 10 hours but Mike held it again at the end. This year's $1,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold'em with Re-Buys championship attracted 766 entries. Another 2,258 re-buys created a prize pool totaling $2,894,094. Banducci made one re-buy plus a double add-on. So, he invested $4,000 in this tournament and collected $636,736. in prize money.
A "Re-Buy" poker tournament means players are permitted to buy back into the tournament multiple times, provided they have equal or less chips than their starting stack. In this tournament, players started play with 2,000 in chips. Any player with a chip count of 2,000 or less was allowed to re-buy. The re-buy period ends after the first two levels (in this case the first two hours). Re-buy tournaments are particularly popular with players who have deeper pockets since they can simply re-buy if they go bust. Since players can buy back in, play tends to be wild and aggressive during those initial two levels.
The final hand came when Jeff Williams was down by about a 3 to 1 chip margin. Jeff Williams raised to 130,000 preflop, and Michael Banducci reraised to 400,000. Williams moved all in and Banducci made the call. They then flipped up their cards:
Banducci: Ad Jc
Williams: Ac 5d
Board: Kc Jh 2d 10d 3c
The best hand held up and Mike Banducci won his first WSOP tournament and a bracelet.  Banducci’s band of supporters went ballistic as he clinched his first tournament.  The runner up was Jeff Williams. At the age of 19, Williams won the European Poker Tour championship, held in Monte Carlo. Another notable aspect to this final table was the ages of the players involved in heads up play. With Banducci ranking in at 23 and Williams two years younger at 21 it was one of the youngest heads up tournaments in World Series of Poker history!
Several former WSOP gold bracelet winners cashed in this event, including Phi Nguyen (10th), Daniel Negreanu (22nd), Nenad Medic (24th), John Juanda (27th), Lee Watkinson (51st), Mark Vos (55th), and Billy Baxter (59th). Medic won his first gold bracelet just a few days ago in the Pot-Limit Hold'em World Championship. Michael Binger took seventh place. Binger is perhaps best remembered for his third place finish and $4 million cash in the 2006 Main Event. He also tied a WSOP record last year for the most cashes in a single year, with eight. The 31st-place finisher, Alex Jacob, won the United States Poker Championship in 2006.
The player with the most re-buys in this tournament was Suk Sung, who reloaded 23 times. This means Sung invested $23,000 for this event. Note: The record for most re-buys was set by Daniel Negreanu back in 2006 when he reloaded an astounding 46 times, plus two reported add-ons. Negreanu was downright stingy this year, by comparison. He re-bought a considerably more modest 12 times this year. Mike actually knocked Daniel Negreanu out of this tournament for 22nd place.
Banducci has considered his winnings beer money, at least that’s what he played for in the past with his buddies. Things have changed significantly for him with the winning of Event five in the World Series of Poker. In an amusing light the winner Banducci celebrated winning the tournament by slamming a can of Milwaukee’s Best Light. You really have to appreciate a guy like that !!
The broadcast of this event will air on ESPN on August 12, 2008.
Banducci made some interesting observations in a post-tournament interview with the WSOP Public Relations Team:
The amount of time it takes to become a good player is reduced by playing on the computer. We play so many hands and talk to our friends about the hands. You learn so fast. I think younger players understand the fundamentals much better. Older players probably know about the real-life live aspects of the game. But the future of poker success depends on understanding the fundamentals. The presence of many Internet poker players at the final table attracted arguably the largest and most boisterous gallery of supporters. Each player seemed to have a specific cheering section of young friends. This added to the drama and excitement of the final table for the event.
I can't imagine ever stopping doing what I am doing. I really enjoy it. Only now, I view it more as a business. I put in a set number of hours per week. At one time I was really passionate about poker. But I think I have become more disciplined about what I do.
Mike has cashed in 3 WSOP events this year. He has total winnings of $974,814.  and has a poker ProRank of 125th place which is quite remarkable for only 2 years of live professional tournaments.
|
