FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#348 – FTOPSy Turvy

Posted by Editor | Filed under Uncategorized

This post is about a week late. I was in Las Vegas when FTOPS VII drew to a close so I missed the last several events not to mention the incredible performance of Thomas Wahlroos, who finished runner-up in the Main Event, earning over $276,000. This should put to sleep (at least for a little while) the business about how the red pros suck at FTOPS. (Yadda yadda, to the converse. It doesn’t START claims about how the site is rigged because I hear those every time I win a pot.

But a red-pro recap of FTOPS VII is in order. With the help of my statistician William, here is how it all came out:

Eighty-six red pros played at least one event in FTOPS VII. Total buy-ins of the pros totaled $272,000. (I’m rounding a little bit, plus there’s the business of estimating costs in the rebuy tournaments. For the latter, as I explained in posts about prior FTOPS, I generally assume one rebuy and one add-on. That’s about average for the field and the red pros are relatively unlikely to cheap out on getting extra chips.) This constituted a total of 503 event buy-ins.

The pros cashed for a total of over $756,000, for a profit of more than $484,000. (This does not include bounties collected in the two bounty events, which probably amounted to less than $2,000 total.) The biggest cash was Erick Lindgren’s victory in the $300 + $22 NLHE event that he hosted, over $291,000. Thomas Walhroos came close, earning more than $274,000 for finishing second in the Main Event. The red pros cashed a total of 57 times, about what you would expect from 503 buy-ins.

Lindgren, of course, gets the MVP award, not just for winning an event but for winning HIS event. He cashed in 2 of 8 events for a profit of $290,000. To no surprise, Wahlroos is the runner up, cashing in 1 of 6 events for a profit of almost $275,000. Ram Vaswami sneaks into third place for the red pros, cashing in the only two events he entered for a profit of $51,000. Scott Clements gets honorable mention for cashing in 3 of his 5 entered events for a profit of $7,500.

Two pros share the Ironman award for playing all 20 events, Jon “PearlJammed” Turner and Scott Fischman. Jon, who is an online tournament Rambo, cashed just twice. He spent the max, $9,582, and earned $1,091. (Incidentally, the record shows that I was zero for $2,695 but I ended with a small profit for the events, because I won satellites totaling over $3,000 and busted two other red pros during events. I saw Jon playing a lot of satellites so it wouldn’t surprise me if he at least broke even for the series. But that doesn’t detract from the fact that my results in these events still suck and now his do too.) Fischman cashed five times in twenty events, but his performance demonstrates the importance not so much of cashing but WHERE you cash. He registered a loss for the events of $3,800.

The results demonstrate what I’ve long maintained about tournament poker: success in tournament poker depends on atypical events. Tournament poker is usually about failing. Even succeeding is usually a losing proposition. But on very rare occasions, one big finish makes it all worthwhile. And sometimes, like for the red pros in FTOPS VII, lightning strikes twice.

FTOPS V – 32 cashes out of 257 entries, net -$96,000.

FTOPS VI – 28 cashes out of 349 entries, net -$82,000.

FTOPS VII – 57 cashes out of 503 entries, net $484,000.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Be Sociable, Share!