Poker From The Rail
a Poker Blog brought to you by Full Tilt Poker
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Full Tilt Poker is always looking at ways to expand the poker experience and yesterday announced a new set of events designed to bring together some of the best poker players in the world. The Onyx Cup Series is six high roller tournaments around the world with buy-ins ranging from $100k to $300k, creating fields where world renowned players can battle against each other for an estimated prizepool of $30,000,000.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, Erik Seidel, John Juanda, Onyx Cup Series, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
This week’s list is not necessarily a “Top 5″ list as I will barely mention the durrrr Challenge 2 which everyone seems to be following (for good reason) but more a little Hall of Fame action followed by a few videos. The entire list could be composed solely of poker related videos but decided the 2010 Hall of Fame nominees and Jen Harman news worthy of a mention.
Dwan is down nearly $700,000 to Dan “jungleman12″ Cates, most of the top players in the world have taken up their place in Europe, and Blair Hinkle won the WSOP Circuit Event in some place called “Council Bluffs” (appropriate name). Just a few of the things that did not make the list this week.
1. The 2010 Poker Hall of Fame nominees were released and include 4 members of Team Full Tilt.
2. Jennifer Harman will be inducted to the Women in Poker Hall of Fame along with Kathy Liebert and Billie Brown.
3. Tom “durrrr” Dwan joins This Week in Poker to discuss the durrrr Challenge 2 and his WSOP bracelet prop bets.
4. ABC’s Nightline aired a story about online poker that wasn’t 6 minutes of taking pot shots.
5. Phil Ivey spends 3 solid minutes in front of the camera for a proper interview.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, durrrr, durrrr Challenge, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Harman, Phil Ivey
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
FTOPS XVII finished up its run yesterday filling out an already stacked Big Money Sunday roll call of tournaments. The prizepool for Sunday alone was just shy of $7,000,000 if you include the finish of the Two Day Event #29 sending the total FTOPS XVII cash over $20,000,000 for the series. “DQnk” has the unique honor of taking home the biggest single payout without the benefit of winning an event, his deal in the Main Event put $446,942 in his pocket while jersey winner TyboVegas took home $423,057.
The Full Tilt pros were led by Brandon Adams and Chris Ferguson. Adams collected the 6th total FTOPS title for a red letter pro while Ferguson had the single biggest cash among team members with nearly $70,000 for his 5th place finish in Event #13. Jeff Madsen came out like gang busters in the first week but lost steam towards the end with only one small cash while Dave Colcough topped all red letter pros with 5 cashes.
Four players come away from this series added a second FTOPS victory to their resume including Mike “chapmoney” Chapp who was the only player to win two titles during FTOPS XVII. Brent “Broberts85″ Roberts doubled up early then followd by Mark “xqsays” Radoja and Mickey “Mement_mori” Petersen. That also means Yuval “yuvee04″ Bronshtein (4)and Adam “csimmsux” Geyer (3) remain as the only players with more than two FTOPS wins. Chapp comes away with atop the FTOPS XVII Leaderboard with his two victories.
Number of events: 34
Guarantee Prizepool: $19,000,000
Actual Prizepool: $20,598,444
Largest Prizepool: $3,000,000 (Main Event)
Smallest Prizepool: $100,000 (Stud Event #25)
Overlay (4 events): $203,300
Number of players: 61,150
Largest Payout: $446,942 (DQnk)
Largest FTP pro Payout: $68,854.80 (Chris Ferguson)
Total FTP pro cash (#): 134
Total FTP pro cash ($): $347,984.55
More FTOPS XVII results after the jump as well as “Completely Unofficial Red Letter Pro Leaderboard”:
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Brandon Adams, Chris Ferguson, FTOPS, Jeff Madsen
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
There were plenty of stories from the FTOPS XVII first half which could be used to kickoff our mid-term report but Chris Ferguson pushed them all to the bottom early this morning. A stellar field remained late into the evening of Event #13, the biggest prizepool of this series with a prizepool over $1,400,000, with Chris Ferguson being the premier player still alive. There were still 5 tables remaining 8 hours into the tournament with Steve Brecher, Brent “Bhanks11″ Hanks, Matt “All In At 420″ Stout, and Jon “apestyles” Van Fleet among those vying for the title.
Ferguson and Hanks would be the only of those to make it through to the final table. Ferguson would fall just short of winning his first FTOPS event in 5th place after running his AQ into Aces, tough cooler when 5 handed. He will be comforted by his near $70,000 in prize money.
History Note: Only five Full Tilt pros have won an FTOPS event. Erick Lindgren, David “The Dragon” Pham*, Gavin Smith, Greg “FBT” Mueller, and Berry Johnston. Lindgren’s victory camer in the event he was hosting during FTOPS VII.
Prior to Ferguson’s run, Jeff Madsen was getting the move FTOPS love amongst the red letter pros. Madsen jumped out early this series with a 3rd place showing in the 6-max Shootout Event #3 and adding 2 other cashes. Several other pros had multiple cashes over the first week including 2010 November Niner John Racener and WSOP signee Lacey Jones. One of our newest pros, Melanie Weisner, hosted her first FTOPS event but was overshadowed by her brother Andrew “SkillVille” Weisner. The male Weisner battle past the other 1,826 players in the Event #9 rebuy to pick up the victory and the ~$110,000. “Callisto 5″ Weisner now has some work to catch her brother.
Other tournament notes as well as FTOPS XVII results and the “Completely Unofficial Red Letter Pro Leaderboard” after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, FTOPS, John Racener, Lacey Jones, Melanie Weisner
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Phil Ivey stands for the U.S. National Anthem during his bracelet ceremony
(Photographer/GreasieWheels)
Just in case you were living under a rock away from the poker over the last week, Phil Ivey captured his 8th career WSOP bracelet in the $3,000 HORSE event over Bill Chen. It was an interesting spectacle with a different atmosphere than the “durrrr” final table a few ago, this final table was stuck our little corner of the Amazon Room without the fan fare or big stadium seating of the main stage.
Two days later Ivey returned to the Pavilion Room for his bracelet ceremony followed by wide open press conference. The picture about was taken by the official WSOP photographer (with creative credit going to B.J. Nemeth) and is something special. You can click the image for the full size picture, it should give you a small feel for the number of people who jammed into the room to see history. Ivey and WSOP TD Jack Effel were joined on stage by Jack Binion.
The rest of the week was full of drama, fun, and of course the continuing parade of Perry Friedman’s hats. You can find just some of our the pictures our very own HeatherB snapped over the last few days. Enjoy after the jump.
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, Donnie Vann, Howard Lederer, Huck Seed, Johnny Chan, Kristy Gazes, Mike Matusow, Perry Friedman, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, Pictures of the Week, Scott Clements, Scott Montgomery, Tom Dwan, WSOP
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner, Full Tilt Poker Academy
The big story in poker this week was the introduction of S 3018 in the United States Senate: the Bipartisan Tax Fairness and Simplification Act, which seeks to restructure US tax code, as well as regulate and tax internet gambling.
Tags: Barney Frank, Chris Ferguson, Isildur1
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner
If you’ve never checked it out, Full Tilt’s Pro Chat Archive has a collection of table chats between the Pros and fans. People ask some strange questions…
Tags: Chris Ferguson, durrrr Challenge, Isildur1, Phil Gordon, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner
In General Poker News:
Phil Ivey and Howard Lederer each donated $30k to attend a fundraiser with President Barack Obama Thursday night at the home of Palms owner George Maloof. No word on whether the two Full Tilt pros were able to convince the President to accept the Irish Poker Open’s invitation to play in their April event.
Tags: Chris Ferguson, durrrr, durrrr Challenge, Full Tilt Poker Academy, Gus Hansen, Howard Lederer, Isildur1, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
FTOPS XV is finally underway kicking off with yesterday’s Turbo Warmup which drew a huge crowd of 34,000 plus grinders and Event #1 with a $1,000,000 Guarantee. 5,646 players paid up the $200+16 creating a nifty prize pool over $1.1 Million and two new 6 digit paydays. Team Full Tilt member Chris Ferguson was one of the more interesting players running deep in the tournament along with Friend of Full Tilt Yongsuk Chang, a professional gamer from South Korea starting to make waves in the poker world. Chang and Ferguson finished 24th and 27th respectively.
FTOPS XV is offering over $17,000,000 in prizepool money across 27 events between now and the Main Event on February 21st. Back this series is the always popular $2,500+$120 Two Day Event and the $500+35 NLHE Heads Up Championship which will sell out quickly. You can find shootouts, 6-max, Turbo and even Super Turbo events this series.
As always, there are several ways to earn your way into several freerolls and pick up extra cash via the FTOPS Challenges. You can find a complete rundown of the game on the FTOPS Schedule page. Good luck on the tables and we will be back this weekend to recap the first few events.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, FTOPS
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Dan Shak defeated Phil Ivey in the Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge
Photo credit: PokerNews.com
It’s been a very busy week around the poker world and your not-so-humble blogger was in the middle of it a little. Live poker was raging across the planet with the WPT Southern Poker Championship, the Borgata Winter Open, Los Angeles Poker Classic, EPT Deauville, and the Aussie Millions. Online poker was dominated on Full Tilt by the raging success of Rush Poker, Big Money Sunday, and the start of Double Guarantee Week. A lot of money flying around.
The big news for Team Full Tilt occurred down in Australia in the $100,000 Challenge event which naturally drew the biggest names in the poker world. More than a third of the small elite field was composed of major members of Team Full Tilt including Chris Ferguson, Erick Lindgren, John Juanda, Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, and Andrew Feldman. When the final table was assembled it included Phil Ivey and Howard Lederer looking for the $1,200,000 AUD first place money. In the end it was Dan Shak preventing Phil Ivey from adding more hardware to his collection, Ivey took home $600,000 AUD before flying home.
The online world continues to buzz about the introduction of Rush Poker. I am in the process of collecting the thoughts of players, bloggers, and writers on this new innovation but the approvals are shocking even for the jaded world of poker. John from the Collective not withstanding. The first big taste was finding an article from Gary Wise at ESPN.
One player, Michael “BraveJayhawk” Jenson, a non-FTP affiliated professional player, coach and sometimes-backer, declared this “the best software update since Party Poker went up to 100bbs and opened 2/4 NL and higher” on the twoplustwo forums. That was more than half a decade ago.
If you haven’t jumped into these tables, go ahead and give them a try. They are not for every player but you might enjoy it, the regular cash game tables will still be there.
The Big Money Sunday events went off without a hitch including the last “Big Little Tournament” with a turbo $250,000 Guarantee. The bustout rate once again amazed as the field was reduced from +30,000 to a winner in less than 4.5 hours, a fine example of the turbo format. Kevin “Wu_Wizard” MacPhee was probably the most well known online pro to take down a title this week in the Sunday Brawl. Kevin “GetPWN3D” Saul made the final table of the $200,000 Guarantee and Mark “MarkFSU1″ DeMasis has several deep runs. Friend of the blog Brian “ship_the_perc” Lemke went deep in the $750,000 and Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers nearly final tables the Sunday Mulligan.
That tournament provided the most railbird action as Evan “NEONPILS99″ Parkes seemed to have a beef with Sowers. After several mild barbs back and forth Parkes laid a classic internet beauty on the table.
NEONPILS99: god you should jus tbe shot in the face
The internet creates some very tough talkers from 1,000 of miles away. Sowers would get the upper hand on the virtual felt by finishing 13th after Parkes dusted off chips with a weak ace. Never a dull moment in poker.
You can find all the Big Money Sunday final table results after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, Rush Poker
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The opinions expressed by this blog and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt Poker is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the author of this blog nor any content contained herein.
