With the FTOPS winding down and the Hold’em Events drawing the biggest fields thus far, it was the Pot Limit Omaha event drawing attention on Saturday. 437 players entered, making it the biggest non-Hold’em Event in Full Tilt history. With a growing base of European players who love Omaha, it is probably a sign of things to come.
This will probably be the most straight forward thing I’ll ever write.
The end is near for the first Full Tilt Online Poker Series, but the action was heating up with a No Limit 6-handed Hold’em tournament. Over 818 players entered into Event #6, competing for a $163,600 prize pool as well as the coveted custom FTOPS Gold Jersey. After six hours of play, we were down to the final table.
The chip leader going in to the final table was iMsoLucky0, a well known internet pro with numerous tournament cashes, online and live. With four cashes in the 2006 WSOP, including one in the $2,500 Short Handed NLHE event, iMsoLucky0 was the odds-on favorite entering the final table, but that’s not to say it would be easy.
The HORSE event of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series was a very prestigious event to the Full Tilt Community. Full Tilt was one of the first sites to offer HORSE, so the regulars have a lot of experience in the game, from Sit & Go’s to daily tournaments to the weekly $200+$16 Sunday Night HORSE Tournament. For those that don’t know, HORSE is a mixed limit game, where Hold’em, Omaha hi/lo, Razz, Stud high only, and Stud hi/lo (Eight or better, which is where the ‘E’ is derived) are played in rotation. The game changes every time the blinds go up, which was every 12 minutes tonight.
Since more and more hold’em specialists seem to saturate tournament fields these days, HORSE has become a hot game for professional players. The World Series of Poker created its biggest event ever this year, a $50,000 HORSE Tournament, which many pros consider to be the new World Championship. Navigating through the Main Event involves a lot of luck, but making the final table of the HORSE Tournament in a field full of elite players where a variety of games are tested shows a lot of skill. It’s hard to argue with the names who made the final table this year: Chip Reese, Andy Bloch, Phil Ivey, T.J Cloutier, David Singer, Dewey Tomko, Doyle Brunson, and internet superstar Patrick Antonius.
On the hump day of FTOPS Week, Event #4 featured Pot Limit Hold’em as the game. 696 players entered, with almost a third of them getting in by way of satellite.
Many in the poker world feel Pot Limit Hold’em is the most skilled game in poker today. In No-Limit Hold’em, novice players are able to neutralize the skill of professionals by getting their chips all-in pre-flop. In Limit Hold’em, it is often correct to go to the river with mediocre hands since the bets are relatively small in relation to the pot, so the mistakes that a poor player makes usually isn’t a huge mistake.
FTOPS Event #3, the $200+$16 Omaha Hi/Lo tournament, drew 552 contestants. After five and a half hours of play, the dust settled and nine players were left to compete for the coveted gold Full Tilt Jersey and over $27,000 in first place money.
Keeping with the tradition of the first two FTOPS events, Event #3 had no shortage of red named Full Tilt Pros. Roland de Wolfe, Allen Cunningham, Andy Bloch, Erick Lindgren, Stuart ‘Donator’ Patterson, Erik Seidel, Steve Zolotow, and Aaron Bartley all entered the event. In fact, one particularly lucky (unlucky?) group of players managed to have three of these pros at their starting table at the same time!
Crandell Addington, a recent inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame once said “Limit poker is a science, but no-limit is an art. In limit, you are shooting at a target. In no limit, the target comes alive and shoots back.” Here at Full Tilt Poker, we respectfully disagree with Mr. Addington. In fact, many of the best players in the world would argue that at the highest levels, limit poker is a more skillful and mentally challenging game. Pushing small edges over and over again instead of waiting patiently for that one big hand puts you to many more decisions per hour and can tax your concentration until your brain is something resembling a small blob of goo.
After weeks of anticipation, the Full Tilt Online Poker Series kicked off last night with Event #1, a $200+$16 No-Limit Hold’em Tournament. 2,000 players started off with 3,000 chips and 12 minute levels, leaving plenty of ammunition for skilled players to navigate through the large field. Judging by some of the names at the final table, Event #1 did not disappoint.
The end came for Allen Cunningham when he moved all-in from the big blind against a raise from Jamie Gold. Gold called, taking his K-J against Allen’s T-T. It was a great run for a great player. The deep finish gives further evidence that Allen is, perhaps, the best tournament player in the world.
Allen won $3.6 Million for his efforts, and despite that accomplishment, he was clearly crushed by the outcome.
This ends the blog for the World Series of Poker. It’s been a pleasure reporting for the past weeks.
Allen Cunningham has had a rough run the past few hours. He’s opened up, and is playing far more hands now that we’re down to four-handed play. But every time he’s put chips in the pot, he’s gotten trampled on with a raise or re-raise.
Jamie Gold is playing the big stack extremely well. He’s effectively pushing the table and is adding to his stack pretty consistently.
The blinds move to 200k/400k, so Allen, with 7 Million in his stack, doesn’t have a lot of room for error. We can expect some all-ins form Allen in the coming hands. He’s reached the point where he’s going to need some luck to get back in the thick of this.
