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#339 – Erick Lindgren Wins FTOPS Event #9
Erick Lindgren triumphed over one of the largest fields in Full Tilt Poker history to become the first red pro to win an FTOPS event. Lindgren prevailed over a field of 5,637 to win Event #9, $300 + $22 NLHE, winning over $291,000 for his 11 ½ hour performance.
His victory has many consequences and signifies many things:
1. It has not only lifted the curse on red pros winning at FTOPS but Erick is obviously the first red pro to HOST an event and go on to win it. Full Tilt has apparently stopped archiving the pro chats but I’d love to read what he had to know for how long he chatted (and what caused him to end the chat).
2. It’s Lindgren’s sixth biggest tournament cash. It’s his biggest since winning the Aussie Millions $100,000 buy-in NLHE in January 2007, which was worth about $795,000. Considering the buy-in and knowing a little about Erick, the odds are decent that money never made it off the island. His last “regular” cash that was bigger was when he finished runner up to Jeff Madsen in the $5,000 short-handed NLHE at the World Series of Poker in July 2006. (At the time, I felt bad for Erick, coming so close to his first bracelet. Now it appears that the bracelet was cursed, as Jeff Madsen has been dogged by bad luck for nearly a year and a half.)
3. This cash was almost as big as the payoff for Erick shooting 4 rounds of golf under 90 on foot on one of the hottest days of the year during the 2007 WSOP. Two months later, Lindgren was still complaining about a sore knee from that experience. On the other hand, the computer-induced eye strain is going to add him to my list of pros that I can sucker into buying dime-store eye-glasses at premium prices. Knee injuries go away or can be surgically repaired. Far-sightedness could leave him saddled with a pair of glasses Henry Kissinger would make fun of.
4. This probably means much more to me than it does to Erick Lindgren. The way Erick rolls, he either has plans for that money or some of his gambling buddies have designs on it. (He pretty much admitted he was broke last September.) On the other hand, I am now freed from the responsibility of documenting the losing ways of the red pros. We’re guaranteed to profit overall in FTOPS VII. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if this unleashed a red tide of success, which might even wash me to the shores of Cashdom. I was going to write about what a miserable weekend this was for me, about my $2500 in tournament buy-ins without a hint of a cash, but now I can keep that information forever to myself.
5. I won’t have to hear about how lousy red pros are.
6. I will have to hear about how Full Tilt is rigged.
As Erick was going deep, I was mentioning to my friend Ted - no, not Ted Forrest - that I wrote some entertaining stuff about Lindgren and Ivey mixing it up during the Million Dollar Cash Game. In fact, a number of those posts were very entertaining and hold up well, even though they were written between hands of a game most of you never saw. I encourage you to reread (or read) the following:
Waiting for Action, Action for Waiting
The Continuing Saga of Phil Ivey vs. Uncle Tilty, or Das Bus
I wrote a five-part account of my last night in London, the evening the Million Dollar Cash Game ended. I like it a lot but I’ll leave it to you to find it after you read this portion of the entry, titled “I Never Close.”
