Entries from May, 2008

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#423 – Full Tilt Heads-Up Championship – whitelime = Balls, but David Singer = Champion

Posted by Michael Craig

Congratulations to David Singer for his victory in the Full Tilt Heads-Up Championship. He defeated whitelime after whitelime defeated Andy Bloch and Singer prevailed over Brian Hastings in the semi-finals.

Here’s how the final hand went down:

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#422 – Full Tilt Heads-Up Championship – Day 2 Preview

Posted by Michael Craig

The semi-final matches are

Table 1 – Andy Bloch v. whilelime

Table 2 – David Singer v. Brian Hastings

The matches start at 16:00 ET.

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#421 – Full Tilt Heads-Up Championship – 37 Mins. Chess, 3 Mins. Wrestling

Posted by Michael Craig

For 37 minutes, Howard Lederer and Brian Hastings fought a tug-of-war for a few hundred of their combined 40,000 chips. Then, in a flash, Hastings got nukes and incinerated Lederer.

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#420 – Full Tilt Heads-Up Championship – Action Deck

Posted by Michael Craig

Just 15 minutes into the round of 16, 3 of the matches are over. I watched the end of the Andy Bloch/ActionJeff match and it wasn’t pretty.

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#419 – Full Tilt Heads-Up Championship – “Tough Match,” Says Mr. Lederer

Posted by Michael Craig

Howard said a mouthful. His second round match against Boosted J began at about 2:30 (Arizona time). Stuck in my own ultimately unsuccessful heads-up match to make the final table of the Main Event Shootout, I missed the beginning of the match. When I took a look at 2:50, Boosted J had a big lead, 14,000/6,000. The match turned around on this hand:

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#418 – Full Tilt Heads-Up Championship – Mr. Ivey’s 30 Minutes

Posted by Michael Craig

I’m writing this as I watch the Full Tilt Heads-Up Championship, which starts at noon (Arizona time). With 4 minutes to go, there are 82 in the field. Now I look again and there are just 81. I thought there was no unregistering? It doesn’t matter because they’ll cut the field at 64 but I wonder what happened.

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#417 – Last Call for Radioactive Girl, or Achy-Breaky Therapy

Posted by Michael Craig

For Jo Anne, the 5 weeks of radiation therapy at the conclusion of her treatment for breast cancer were sold to us as a vacation compared with 5 months of chemotherapy. Radiation therapy has generally been much easier for her to handle than chemo but it’s still been inconvenient and intimidating. It’s like we’re almost done with cancer but there still has to be something to remind us how awful it is to be part of your life.

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#416 – FTOPS Notebook – Halfrek = Zeus

Posted by Michael Craig

Just a little while ago, a player named Halfrek from Denmark won the $2,500 + $120 NLHE event. With 899 players and a prize pool over $2.2 million, it’s a towering achievement. You could have a long and successful poker career with that $516,925 as your biggest cash. For Halfrek, it’s just the capper on a good week.

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#415 – OK, There Was a Consolation Prize

Posted by Michael Craig

Don’t listen to me for too long when I complain about my tournament misery. At noon today (Arizona Time), I played in the $150 + $13 NLHE tournament, the $40,000 Guarantee. On Sundays, it draws a big field and today was no exception: 882 entries, a prize pool of over $123,000.

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#414 – FTOPS Notebook – A Fitting End to My FTOPS VIII

Posted by Michael Craig

I finished fifth in the FTOPS Main Event!

By that, I mean I was the fifth player eliminated out of 4,750. And when I tell you I’m cursed in FTOPS, this is what I mean. I’m not saying this was a bad beat -  just not atypical.

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