Big Money Sunday – February 15th

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail

Roy “The Oracle” Winston final tabled the Sunday Mulligan
Photo credit: PokerPages.com

Big Money Sunday really kicks it in gear when there is an FTOPS series in the mix. This Sunday brought out enough players for the regular majors, their replacements and FTOPS XI Main Event to create a prizpool over $4,000,000 for the day. $6,500,000 if you add in the conclusion of FTOPS XI Event #22, the $5,000 Two Day tournament that had a cool clean 500 players run up a $2,500,000 prizepool.

Full Tilt pro Roy “The Oracle” Winston was the only red letter player to make a final table this week, making it deep in the Sunday Mulligan in what was shaping up to be a stellar final table.

FTOPS XI has run it’s course and laid on some big numbers, Big Money Sunday details after the jump.

It was an insane day watching from the rail as the number of players and money at stake made it nearly impossible to keep an eye on everyone on my radar. One moment I was watching fellow FTP blogger Michael Craig crush his way deep in Event #24, the next moment his table breaks up when he’s knocked out around 750th. I haven’t a clue how it happened.

I did the best I could under the circumstances and caught some of the action as the tournaments shrunk to functional levels.

- FTOPS XI Event #24 replaced the regular Sunday Brawl, but this time as a $120 buyin with $20 KO’s. $750,000 was the early tournament guarantee and the players almost got it up to $1,000,000. After going through over 9,000 players I was unfamiliar with the players at the final table. “MantaRays” and “Akaperion” each have Sunday Brawl final tables to their credit but not much on the other 7. Once we were down to 18 players I was interested to see how Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers would finish up after coming being the runner-up in Event #12. Unfortunately he ran into a player who was habitually falling in love with baby pairs and hitting them hard.

- FTOPS XI Main Event was the showcase of the evening. $2,643,500 prizepool and a very slow, deep structure. In the cold confines of my FTP dungeon, I realized the sun would be up shortly, there were still 38 players left and average stack was sitting on 40+ BB’s. That’s one serious structure. World Series of Poker bracelet winner Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis was the most notable player to come up short of the final table. Making the final 9 were a couple of players already sporting an FTOPS avatar indicating a previous title. Luie Sojo has to be still getting used to his new look as his FTOPS title occurred during this series, FTOPS XI Event #9, the Heads Up Marathon. csimmsux would add to his considerable resume by winning the Main Event Sunday evening, adding to his FTOPS VII Event #17 victory. On the other end of the spectrum we had players PartyPimp and clubflush5 who satellited into the Main Event and turned their small investment into 6 digit paydays. Carter “cswidler” Swidler had just up a 3rd place finish in the Sunday Mulligan and came close to two major final tables in the same evening, finishing the Main Event in 17th.

- The $200,000 Double Deuce is becoming indescribable. The size of this field on a weekly basis is crazy and the style of play is entertaining from the rail but I imagine not a lot of fun to deal with at the table. For a $22 buyin, the top 15 were guaranteed at least a $1,279 payday. If you are a small stakes player, you need to find every way to get in this game as you can. Big money, small investment.

- For all the big games and huge fields, it was The Sunday Mulligan that was holding most of my attention as the tables continued to break. With just 2 tables remaining I was anxiously waiting to see what the makeup of the final table would be. The lineup had the potential to be a classic.

Coming up just short were Steven “UFman2″ Burkholder, FTOPS XI Event #17 winner, and Steve “thorladen” Weinstein who just took him over $650,000 for winning the 2009 Borgata Winter Poker Open last month.

That still left us with a final table full of impressive resumes. Carter “cswidler” Swidler has a win in the $40k Guarantee, PureProfitFour has a $65k Guarantee win, villus has a Sunday Brawl final table plus a Fifty Fifty victory, and our eventual winner Hesperides already was sporting a Sunday Brawl final table along with his 6th place finish in FTOPS IX Event #7 final table. The two big marquee names were Full Tilt pro and 2007 Borgata Poker Open Champ Roy “The Oracle” Winston who came in with the shortstack and online poker legend Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen who was the first to exit.

All together another crazy Sunday and a conclusion to a hugely successful FTOPS series.

Final table counts and payouts:

FTOPS XI Event #24
Entrants – 9,061
Prizepool – $906,100
First place – $144,885

Doglamina – 13,155,986
hro1707 – 8,706,281
massicci – 5,473,439
MantaRays – 4,013,971
Akaperion – 3,891,323
girlyhurly – 3,523,006
AAs to QQs – 2,767,884
pongu06 – 2,179,118
Y2JohnK6 – 1,593,992

1st – girlyhurly – $144,885
2nd – AAs to QQs – $90,610
3rd – Doglamina – $54,366
4th – Akaperion – $40,774
5th – kro1707 – $31,713
6th – massicci – $24,464
7th – Y2JohnK6 – $18,122
8th – MantaRays – $13,591
9th – pongu06 – $9,967

FTOPS XI Main Event
Entrants – 5,287
Prizepool – $2,643,500
First place – $456,056

1st – csimmsux – $456,056
2nd – KA1SERfknS0ZE – $276,245
3rd – PartyPimp – $177,643
4th – clubflush5 – $138,783
5th – CHOOK2120 – $104,418
6th – dump22 – $77,983
7th – 23bigd23 – $60,800
8th – supermanpunch – $46,261
9th – Luie Sojo – $34,365

The $200k Double Deuce
Entrants – 11,630
Prizepool – $232,600
First place – $35,355

Ol Dirty Kurty1 – 8,766,028
tieuma92 – 5,588,866
sauberhs – 4,872,924
ACyrilBC – 4,805,243
BIGCHAR99 – 4,469,950
Spyge – 2,974,996
UlationControl – 2,786,168
stevester214 – 1,846,903
bellanca1124 – 1,337,522

1st – sauberhs – $35,355
2nd – BIGCHAR99 – $22,562
3rd – Spyge – $13,490
4th – bellanca1124 – $9,769
5th – UlationControl – $7,675
6th – Ol Dirty Kurty1 – $5,815
7th – ACyrilBC – $4,419
8th – tieuma92 – $3,302
9th – stevester214 – $2,442

The Sunday Mulligan
Entrants – 1,542
Prizepool – $308,400
First place – $66,306

cswidler – 1,029,706
PureProfitFour – 799,494
Sibist – 643,820
DressedInBlack – 568,153
Jeebus1 – 423,114
villus – 360,846
THAY3R – 303,250
Hesperides – 250,246
Roy Winston – 247,371

1st – Hesperides – $66,306
2nd – DressedInBlack – $43,176
3rd – cswidler – $31,225
4th – Jeebus1 – $25,057
5th – villus – $18,904
6th – PureProfitFour – $13,878
7th – Roy Winston – $8,943
8th – Sibist – $6,476
9th – THAY3R – $4,585

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