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#226 – Ferguson Shatters Ten Thousand (and Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen!)
At 9:20 PM PDT on Tuesday, August 14, Chris Ferguson reached his original milestone of ten thousand dollars, starting from zero on Full Tilt. He did it at a $10-$20 NLHE table, and the landmark hand was As-Js. Chris raised and the big blind called. After a flop of T-8-3 with two spades, Chris bet and was check-raised. But it was a small raise. When Ferguson moved all-in, his opponent folded.
And that’s how you get from zero to ten thousand dollars.
I spent much of the evening watching Chris, first at multiple $10-$20 NLHE tables, and then in FTOPS #7, Omaha Eight-or-Better, and in the Turbo Hundred, which I encouraged him to play. We also spent about an hour and a half on the phone. I’ll be writing at length about what I saw and what we discussed in the coming days, but here is the NEWS:
1. At 11:10 PM, he finished the cash games for the night with a balance of $10,594.84.
2. He finished in 20th place in the FTOPS event, earning $815.58.
3. After I talked him into playing the Turbo Hundo, he finished third out of 197, making another $2,511.75. (FYI, I finished 36th after my bluff on the button with The Hammer was called by the small blind’s A-5. Guess that’s why Ferguson went from zero to ten thousand – and beyond – and I’m developing guidelines for the “Reverse Ferguson”.)
4. This isn’t even his JOB. He’s giving the @#$#@% money to @#$#@ charity.
Congratulations Chris. Chris Ferguson is a friend of mine and The Full Tilt Poker Blog isn’t a place you would expect to find critical material on a Full Tilt Pro. But forget all that. Chris is one of the nicest, most admirable people I’ve ever met, and I’m not qualifying that with “in poker.” He is a phenomenal person, in his talents, his behavior, and his outlook on life. This is a tremendous achievement, not just that he started with zero and made ten thousand dollars, but HOW he did it.
That’s what I’ll be writing about in the next few days.
Again, marvelous job. His Full Tilt account is now at about $13,800. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy or a more talented one. And it couldn’t have been done in a better way.
