Scott Ball had his breakout live tournament victory in the 2021 World Series of Poker $5,000 buy-in six-max no-limit hold’em event for $562,667 on Oct. 14. Just a month later he backed up that huge victory by securing his second bracelet of the series, topping a massive field of 3,797 total entries to win the $1,111 ‘Little One For One Drop’ no-limit hold’em event. Ball earned $396,445 and his second piece of WSOP hardware for the win.
“I told my friends that are here that before the start, I feel like this isn’t the real-life,” Ball told PokerNews live reporters after coming out on top. “It’s like a simulation to be heads-up again for a bracelet in like two weeks. I’ve just worked so hard to get better at No-Limit this past year, so when it peeled off and I won another one, it just didn’t feel like reality. It feels like I’m dreaming, and I’m going to wake up tomorrow and be like, dang, I can’t wait to live that one day.”
In addition to the title and the money, Ball also scored 1,320 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of this event. With the 1,680 points he earned with his previous win at the series, Ball has increased his yearly total to 3,050 points. As a result, he now sits in 19th place in the 2021 POY race, which is sponsored by Global Poker.
Ball came into the final day of play in third chip position with 26 players remaining. He remained in third position when the unofficial final table of ten was set. Ball scored his first knockout of the final table when his A-10 held up against the 10-8 of short stack Ronnie Ballantyne. Ball made aces and kings to secure the pot and send Ballantyne home with $86,249.
2021 WSOP Online $777 no-limit hold’em event winner David Jackson was the next to hit the rail. Jackson was all-in and at risk with pocket sixes, and would up facing the A
10
of Sorel Mizzi, who bet Ball out of a side pot after the turn on a 10732
. Jackson was unable to come from behind and was eliminated in fifth place ($110,827).
Sebastian Echavarria’s run in this event concluded when his shove of 13 big blinds with KJ
was looked up by Michael Shanahan, who held A6. Shanahan made queens full of aces by the river to take down the pot and send Echavarria packing with $143,399.
Accomplished Canadian tournament player Sorel Mizzi lost a big chunk of his stack to a rivered flush for Ball. He then got the rest of his chips in with pocket threes, only to have Ball call with pocket jacks. The larger pair held up and Mizzi was eliminated in third place ($186,824). The score increased his career earnings to more than $12.8 million.
With that Ball took 94,000,000 into heads-up play with Shanahan, who sat with 57,880,000 to start. The 2017 Mid-States Poker Tour FireKeepers main event winner was able to battle his way into the lead, but his time on top during heads-up was short-lived. Ball regained the advantage and built his lead back up to roughly a 2:1 disparity by the time the final hand was dealt. All of the chips went in prelop, with Shanahan four-bet shoving with A8 after Ball had three-bet his button open out of the big blind. Ball called with QQ and the board ran out K83K2 to secure the pot and the title for Ball. Shanahan was awarded $245,068 as the runner-up, the largest payday of his career.
| Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points |
| 1 | Scott Ball | $396,445 | 1320 |
| 2 | Michael Shanahan | $245,068 | 1100 |
| 3 | Sorel Mizzi | $186,824 | 880 |
| 4 | Sebastian Echavarria | $143,399 | 660 |
| 5 | David Jackson | $110,827 | 550 |
| 6 | Ronnie Ballantyne | $86,249 | 440 |
| 7 | Petro Zakusilov | $67,592 | 330 |
| 8 | Seth Fischer | $53,343 | 220 |
| 9 | Frank Marasco | $42,398 | 110 |
Winner photo credit: WSOP / Melissa Haereiti.