Small-Ball Wins Gold for Banducci

By Jason Kirk Jun 6, 2008 | 6 months ago

Michael Banducci wins Event 5 at the 2008 WSOP

Michael Banducci had been close to a bracelet before, having made the final table of last year's $2,000 No-Limit Hold'em event and finished in fifth place.

Tonight he made good, defeating Jeff Williams heads-up for the bling and the biggest share of the bricks of cash. I spoke with Banducci just after his win tonight.

You made a WSOP Circuit final table with Chris Ferguson a while back, where he won a race and then eventually won the tournament while you finished sixth. Did you have any flashbacks to that table while you were playing tonight?

You know, last summer I made a final table here, flopped two pair, and got busted by a higher two pair. And there was a hand today where I flopped top two pair on a K-Q-J board with all spades. And all I could think was, "Is this going to happen with two pair again?"

The feeling that I had against Ferguson when all the money went in on the turn and he hit his card on the river, that was the feeling that I had every time I was all-in in this tournament. That feeling that the wrong card was coming. I somehow faded it every time today and ran really good.

Your playing style seems to be pretty analytical. How do you break hands down and use the information you gather to make your plays?

There are so many metagame things going on. A lot of the hands you play, you're thinking back to what you did before, and what your opponents thought of those hands.

There was one hand tonight (against Williams) where the flop came 7-7-6 and I had 8-7. I led into him because there was one hand yesterday where I led into him with the same kind of spot with nothing, and led the turn with nothing, and he eventually folded and I showed my bluff. So tonight I led the flop and the turn with trips and got two streets of value out of him because of that hand yesterday.

The game really slowed down toward the end, especially when you were six-handed and three-handed. How did you stay patient during those points?

Well, when we were six-handed we were all pretty even in chips. So I just told myself, "I'm about average. I feel like I'm better than all these guys. I'm not going to put myself in a spot where I'm at risk where I don't need to be." So I just tried to keep everything real simple.

When we were three-handed I had a lot of chips, so that was completely different. I was trying to keep it real calm. I wasn't forcing it - we didn't play a lot of real big pots.

I was min-raising and min-betting, things where if you're the small blind and a guy min-raises, there's not much incentive to try to reraise to try and steal the $150,000. If I make it $150,000 or something, the pot is big enough he's probably going to come after it. I was trying to discourage action and encourage everyone to play small-ball.

They get in this mind frame that now that they're playing small, everything is going to stay small, so you sort of get them to play the game that you want. It worked out really well.

When you got heads-up against Jeff you seemed to be very aware that he could be dangerous in a heads-up match.

Yeah, he can be really aggressive and is capable of a lot of things. He really reminds me of myself a year ago; I used to be just wildly aggressive like him. Since then I've changed my play a little bit, but I still understand how he plays.

What I didn't want was for him to get back into the game. I tried to keep a steady lead. I just couldn't flop a pair for about the first 10 hands, and then when I did catch a pair of sevens, he had a pair of eights. It was things like that.

He climbed back pretty close to even, and I was fortunate to fall into a hand where he would stick it all-in, and I got my chips in the middle in a good spot.

Congratulations, Michael, and thanks for your time.

Thank you.

 

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Michael Banducci came in with the chip lead in today's event, but he didn't try to bludgeon his opponents' every move. Instead he sat back and adjusted his game plan on the fly, an approach that ended up claiming him the gold bracelet and the winner's share of the cash - not to mention a coveted interview with PokerListings.com.