FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#286 – FTOPS Bulletin – Event #10 – Jennifer Harman is One Tough Customer

Posted by Editor | Filed under Uncategorized

It’s Wednesday night, November 14, and I’m watching them in the money in FTOPS #10, the $300 + $22 NLHE-6-rebuy event. Apologies for getting behind on the FTOPS Bulletins. I have plenty to share but life is killing me this week. I don’t like playing the Cancer Card but this has been an ugly week for Jo Anne, who had her third chemo treatment last Thursday. She’s been remarkably strong and positive but I don’t think anyone can handle what she’s had to go through. Granted, I’ve still played a bunch of FTOPS events and other tournaments, but that doesn’t mean it’s not hurting me TOO. So I’m trying to make amends by throwing at you all the FTOPS stuff I’ve picked up over the last week. This will require several posts, made more difficult by the fact the FTOPS are a moving target; as I tell you things, more stuff is happening.

I’m watching Event #10, the $300/rebuy and it’s been fascinating from what little I can see. I started watching after they’d been at it about 3 ½ hours and they were 20 from the bubble. I was watching Jennifer Harman because she was second-lowest in chips and I’m in awe of how hard she is to bust. It’s actually a pretty common trait among the top top top pros but I’ve watched Harman in some tournaments and it’s impressive to follow. [This is good advice for why you should watch pros play in tournaments. Harman is so good at making decisions when she is short-stacked. Anybody can learn from watching a player of her caliber as they maneuver with a short stack. I know I have.]

Right after I said hello from the rail, she got all-in against two players. She had aces and was up against tens and fours. The tens made a set on the flop but Jen made a set of aces on the river to more than triple up. But she never got a big stack so she was mostly restricted to getting her chips all-in in the right situations.

Once they got into the money, it was like a prison break. The tournament paid 144 and it took about 15 minutes (or so it seemed) to get from 144 to 100. Jen got moved 3 times and a big and active rail moved with her. She was very accommodating of the crowd, answering as many questions as she could.

She got moved to a table with Cliff “Johnny Bax” Josephy and they got into it pretty quickly. With blinds of 800-1,600 and an ante of 200, Johnny Bax raised to 4,800 and Harman, in the big blind, called. With about 12,000 in the pot, Johnny Bax bet 8,000 after a flop of 3s-7c-Jc. Jennifer raised all-in for 26,486 and Johnny Bax called. Jennifer showed Kc-8c for king-high, an overcard, and a flush draw. Johnny Bax had 4c-3c for third pair and a flush draw but a lower one.

Josephy probably thought he was behind but had 14 outs, which made it just about a coin flip. In fact, he was the favorite with his pair of threes.

Harman probably thought she was an underdog but wanted to get her money in first in case Cliff whiffed. There was 46,000 in the pot and Johnny Bax had to call just 18,000 so he’d have to be in an extremely bad way to give it up. But she had to figure she had 9 outs against just about anything and maybe one overcard. The chips in the pot gave her the right odds to play with 12 outs. She actually had 2 fewer outs than she thought (because Johnny Bax had 2 clubs) but 3 more because the 3 eights would give her a higher pair than Cliff’s threes.

Johnny Bax’s hand held up, after Qd and 4s. The 60,000+ chip pot made him the chips leader and Jen was out in 93rd. As I write this, there are 44 left and Johnny Bax is 7th in chips.

This was a pretty good event for the pros, though because of the rebuy structure, I’ll have to guesstimate on the cost. (I’ll do this for all events and try to give a summary after the FTOPS, as I did for FTOPS V.) 29 pros entered. I’m going to assume 3 buy-ins for the pros, or $900 + $22. For the field as a whole, this would be about average. There were 1,162 starters who made a total of 1,721 rebuys and 612 add-ons. Five pros made it into the money: Peter W Jepsen, Harman, Marco Traniello, Adam Schoenfeld, and Jon “PearlJammed” Turner. Five of 29 is pretty impressive but, as always, with the money concentrated in the last few spots, you’re losing money if you don’t get to the final table. Here is how they finished:

Peter W. Jepsen – $ 134th – $1,363.05
Jennifer Harman – 93rd – $1,677.60
Marco Traniello – 78th – $1,992.15
Adam Schoenfeld – 60th – $2,306.70
PearlJammed – 59th – $2,306.70

That’s a total payoff to the Full Tilt pros of $9,646.20. If none of the 29 pros had added on or rebought, the cost would have been only slightly less, $9,338. If we assume an average of one rebuy and one add-on, the cost to the 29 pros would have been $26,738. That makes for an estimated loss of $17,000, and this was a pretty GOOD event for the Full Tilt pros.

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