Poker From The Rail
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Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
No pics of Scott Montgomery from yesterday, so going with Amanda “MandyB” Baker
While it looks like a slower day on the calendar, we’ll still be running around the Rio like crazy people. Even though there is only one final table today and one new event, the math tells us we have at least 32 Full Tilt pros mixed throughout the restarting event today. Scott Montgomery shows his mastery of the low buyin with a chance at a second bracelet and both Day 2 restarts are chock full of big names.
I made the mistake last week of dismissing the $1,000 NLH tournament, it wasn’t until they were 5-handed that I realized Tilt’s own Scott Montgomery was cruising along to his first WSOP bracelet. I won’t do that again this week as Montgomery is the middle of the mix again, sitting in the bottom half of the field but with plenty of play left. This road won’t be quite as easy with Mike Beasley and WPT Borgata Poker Open Champion Olivier “livb112″ Busquet between him and bracelet number two. 33 players return at 2:30pm to play until a winner is crowned.
The big ticket tournament yesterday was the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha (aka Four Card Bingo) tournament which drew nearly 100 players more than 2009. Despite the gambling nature of the game we still have 207 players returning to make the money and aim for the final table. 2009 November Nine member Kevin Schaffel ended Day 1 with the chip lead but is being chased by some of the best in the game. Just a few of those in striking distance are Annette Obrestad, John Juanda, Mike Matusow, Justin “BoostedJ” Smith, “Miami John” Cernuto, Barny Boatman, Lee Watkinson, Ted Forrest, and Matt Glantz. We’ll see some quick bustouts early and maybe even make the final 9 before play is schedule to end for the night.
$5,000 Pot Limit Omaha top ten chip counts:
1 – Kevin Schaffel – 178,900
2 – Alex Freiberg – 138,900
3 – Kevin Boudreau – 137,300
4 – Jonas Entin – 118,200
5 – Jarred Solomon – 104,800
6 – Dan Shak – 100,800
7 – Gary Bolden – 100,800
8 – Javed Abrahams – 99,600
9 – Tex Barch – 92,700
10 – Mark Eddleman – 89,600
The $1,500 NLH played exactly according to the formula. Just 290 players of the starting 2,543 survived the massacre of Day 1 leaving them just 20 eliminations from the money. Some of the stories we heard from this tournament throughout the day had me sticking my head outside to check for a full moon. Next time you are busted from a $10 online tournament by someone overplaying 93o or similar to bust you out, imagine playing a live WSOP $1,500 tournament is having that done on a regular basis. The fish are not strictly relegated to the online tables, the have migrated to the desert.
David “The Dragon” Pham* begins Day 2 with the biggest stack among the Full Tilt pros in a field that also contains Andy Bloch, Roland De Wolfe, Liv Boeree, Matt Matros, Shane “shaniac” Schlegler, Peter “Nordberg” Feldman, and 2009 November Nine member Kelly Kim. There is also a chance that Allen “Complainsaw” Kessler will make the money and incredibly his 8th cash of the 2010 WSOP. Play will restart at 2:30pm.
$1,500 No Limit Hold’em top ten chip counts:
1 – Giuseppe Zarbo – 156,500
2 – Roberto Stamerra – 120,100
3 – Andrew Gillis – 120,000
4 – Gregory Roy – 119,600
5 – Sean Prendiville – 110,500
6 – Benjamin Eilers – 109,900
7 – Kyle Knecht – 104,400
8 – Israel Elias – 104,200
9 – Thomas Fridley – 103,600
10 – Kenneth Terrell – 97,200
Tags: 2010 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, David Pham, Scott Montgomery, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
The last few days were busy ones around here on Full Tilt Poker. FTOPS XVI kicked off a few days ago with plenty of free money, the BBT5 Challenge has crowned more champions, the 2010 WSOP satellites were crowded, and a few FTP pros were making noise on the tables. It meant a lot of late nights spent tied to my laptop sitting in my dungeon but it was never boring. Here’s a short rundown of what we’ve seen.
FTOPS XVI Event #1 began the latest online series and spotted the players a significant overlay. In fact 4 of the first 5 events included added money from Full Tilt poker as they came up short on the guaranteed prizepool as a lot of players spent their hard earned prize money on WSOP satellites. Over $15,000 was added in Event #1 but we still awarded our first 6-digit payday. Full Tilt pro Bruno Stefanelli started things off with a bang making the final table and banking $12,000 to give the red letter pros an early jump. David “The Dragon” Pham* also started off on a nice heater by cashing in the first four FTOPS events he entered, a streak which was broken when he came up just short in Event #9.
The most impressive final table during the first weekend was found in the 6-max PLO tournament. Chris “herdgolf86″ Tipper, Dave Colclough, and Ozenz “the aviator1″ Demir all came up just missed the short handed final table but it left Kevin “GetPWN3D” Saul, Mark “dipthrong” Herm, Timothy “Tim0thee” Adams, and Attila “lyzardos” Kovesi to battle it out. In the end it was unknown “-BeatMe79-” who would take down the crown and $86,000 for his very first tournament win that I’ve been able to track down. It was a tough table to conquer for his first victory and it took some brutal hands, especially to Kevin Saul, to get there.
The career Omaha ROI for -BeatMe79- is now 7170% (no decimal point).
That is completely sustainable.
This incarnation of the series gave players a chance to experience the hottest new form of tournament poker. FTOPS XV brought us the super turbo game, now FTOPS XVI adds the excitement and action of Rush Poker Tournaments. This game makes it impossible to rail but Chris “Moormanl” Moorman was the biggest name to get near the final table. In the end our second place finisher took away $14,000 more than your first ever Rush Poker FTOPS Champion “4high20″.
Over $3,500,000 in FTOPS XVI prize money has been distributed so far to various online grinders with 6 players walking away with $100,000 or more. Jon “apestyles” Van Fleet picked up one of those big payouts with $123,000 to boost him over $1,000,000 in career tournament earnings on Full Tilt alone and finally adding an FTOPS title to his resume after so many close calls.
In Battle of the Blogger Tournaments news we now have six players qualified for the BBT5 Tournament of Champions including professional player Matt “All In At 420″ Stout who picked up his seat Sunday evening. Also winning their way into the big game in May were bloggers jjok, maigrey, VinNay, and dignitasODEE. Monday was our first ever Poker From the Rail blogger tournament which saw a great field of 85 players pony up the $26 to sling chips with their favorite bloggers. An even bigger crowd showed up during the long running Mookie Tournament Wednesday evening, setting a new tournament record with 122 players and not ending until nearly 3am on the east coast. The turnout for our first week has been incredible and we need to thank all the players. The second Poker From the Rail tournament will run Monday evening at 22:00ET and everyone is welcome to play.
Tournament: Poker From the Rail
When: Monday at 22:00ET
Game: Deepstack NLHE
Buyin: $24+2 (or tournament ticket)
Password: 2010WSOP
Your results from the first 9 events of FTOPS XVI can be found after the jump as well as the “completely unofficial FTOPS XVI Full Tilt pro Leaderboard”:
Tags: AlCantHang, BBT, BBT5, Bloggers on the Rail, Bruno Stefanelli, David Pham, FTOPS
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Sunday brought to close another successful FTOPS with 25 more events and over $18,000,000 dished out among the players. We had some big score by the top online and professional poker players such as David “The Dragon” Pham, Steven “UFman2″ Burkholder, Brian “badbeatninja” Devonshire and Thayer “THAY3R” Rassmussen. Brad “bd3109″ Albrinck came out of nowhere to claim the top of the FTOPS XIV leaderboard with one title and a runner-up result in back-to-back days (Event #16 and 18) collecting nearly $100,000. Gary Jones was your big money winner amongst the Full Tilt pros when he banked $193,462 with his 4th place finish in the $2,500 Two Day Event.
The series started off with a little controversy in Event #1 when the players decided to not pay attention when making a deal at the table. If you want to know what happened, feel free to check out the Full Tilt forums. Yesterday concluded the series by paying out $6,487,7000 across four huge tournaments and awarding 13 players with paydays in the six digit range. There were actually four events this series which fell just short of the guarantee which meant that Full Tilt kicked in an extra $200,000 to the players in the form of overlays bringing the final prizepool payout to $18,153,100 across the 25 events.
I spent most of the series sitting in Las Vegas covering the November Nine but that didn’t mean I wasn’t keeping an eye on the biggest set of online tournaments running at the same time. After spending my days with the live players I would return to see what I missed, or what was still going on after one particularly long day. I asked fellow blogger Brad Utz to help me out and here are some of things we witnessed. You can find the final table results of all events after the jump.
- Full Tilt pros have a tough time breaking through to win these major events. Before this series only Erick Lindgren, Berry Johnston, and Gavin Smith were able to accomplish that feat with Smith and Johnston doing it last series. FTOPS XIV saw two more red letter pros score victories with David “The Dragon” Pham and Greg “FBT” Mueller. Pham had several prior FTOPS final tables to his credit but no joy until Event #14. Mueller’s victory was previous documented as he joined Erick Lindgren as the only Full Tilt pros to actually capture a victory in the event they were “hosting”.
- Coming into FTOPS XIV there were only 10 players who have won multiple events across the near 240 tournaments prior to this series. csimmus and Yuvee “yuvee04″ Bronshtein lead the way with 3 FTOPS titles. This series added three more to that list with Steven “UFman2″ Burkholder, Deception Pt, and elheroe all earning their second “golden jersey”. Event #5 was the FTOPS stacked table of the series with three previous winner with Burkholder almost adding another, “yuvee04″ going for his FOURTH, and it was here that Deception Pt picked up his second. There were actually quite a few former winners who came close to adding another this series including Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire, David “Doc Sands”, and lilkimmer77 who all made final tables.
Live poker update: While finishing up this post I found out that “yuvee04″ just took down the H.O.R.S.E. event at the L.A. Poker Open. Congrats to a friend of the blog!
- Miscellaneous numbers from FTOPS XIV:
Number of events: 25
Guarantee Prizepool: $16,000,000
Actual Prizepool: $18,153,100
Largest Prizepool: $2,735,500 (Main Event)
Smallest Prizepool: $111,000 (Stud Hi/Lo)
Overlay (4 events): $221,300
Number of players: 54,823
Players with over $100,000 payout: 30 (thirty!)
Largest Payout: $539,350.00 (obiedman)
Largest FTP pro Payout: $193,462.50 (Gary Jones)
Total FTP pro cash (#): 79
Total FTP pro cash ($): $481,343.36
- I’m not sure anyone who hasn’t witnessed millions of online hands can appreciate some of the complete insanity the follows along with the big names on the site or when the tournaments get down to just a few tables. The regular Big Money Sunday events are crazy enough but FTOPS brings out the top shelf. The beggars are still there but practically drowned out by every nutball that’s ever posted on a forum or played a $1 SnG offering up their opinions on every move. It’s almost priceless when they start fighting amongst themselves. When the railbirds start challenge to play any for any stakes, it’s pure comedy. That’s why Craig “HU4ROLLZ” Bergeron has one of my favorite screennames. In a moment of weakness I decided to start a Railbird Hall of Shame Fame. I witnessed the following names on the rail who will join our inaugural class with nh83012001 getting special honors for challenging everyone “ill play you in any game any stakes”. It seems his apostrophe key was stuck that day also.
Your FTOPS XIV Railbird inductees, be sure to congratulate them:
chuckie247: you think im a fish, yet im the one in profit…
(ragging the rail, while on the rail)
Joey1029: go cry to your mom kid.
(overused the word “kid” when abusing)
nh83012001:ill play you in any game any stakes
(we have a winner!)
xMONSTERxDONGx: u guys dont know what ur talking about
(no-it-alls annoy me on the last day)
i8aNET15: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
(with a incredibly impolite message to “FBT” Mueller)
I’m always looking for something amusing on the rail, feel free to pass anything along if you see something worthy of notice.
After the jump you can find the results for all FTOPS final tables and other notables. You can also find the complete unofficial Full Tilt Poker Red Letter Pro Challenge.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, David Pham, FTOPS, Greg Mueller
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Another week gone by and another Big Money Sunday is in the books. Another success day for many at the virtual tables and we saw some big names running deep and late. A former FTOPS champ won The Sunday Mulligan, one top online grinder jinxed himself via Twitter, another found himself blinded off due to a connection issue.
While no members of Team Full Tilt were able to make a final table, we did see Chris Klecz duck and weave the $20 grinders in the $200k Double Deuce to finish in 28th. Adam Schoenfeld also cashed in the tournament but so did 1,349 other players. Jens Voertmann had the deepest red letter pro run in the $750k Guarantee in 33rd with Isaac Baron right behind him in 47th. Fellow Full Tilt blogger Michael Craig came close to glory by finishing 3,398 out of 3,838. That’s tough to do. Our big runs in The Sunday Mulligan came from Kristy Gazes in 73rd and Poker from the Rail favorite David “The Dragon” Pham* in 42nd. Towards the end it seemed Pham had his opponents confused as they often put all their chips in the middle with TPSK (top pair s*&t kicker) against his overpair or monster flop. He was ultimately undone by running his Aces into a sooooted AK.
“Pocketownage420″ has another win to his credit after taking down The Sunday Mulligan, just a small percentage of the money he took down for winning the Main Event for FTOPS XII. Also joining him at the final table was FTOPS XIII Event #3 winner “UgA7211″. Kevin “GetPWNS3D” Saul was running huge in the $750,000 Guarantee, right up until he sent out a twitter message saying “19/193 FTP 750k…last tourney of the day” He finished 104th.
17,885 players signed up across the 4 big tournaments of the day creating prizepools totaling $1,703,740. The big winners of the evening were our two players to bank 6 digit wins in the Sunday Brawl and $750k Guarantee, TheRyanKing07 for $112,818.62 and tong26 for $101,281.57.
Final table numbers and results after the jump:
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, David Pham
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
There were plenty of opportunities for more pictures yesterday during the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event Day 1b and some great stories. 655 players of the starting 873 survived the day with even more Tilters moving onto Day 2.
Full Tilt sponsored two players in the Main Event with stories worthy of your interest. Marlon Shirley (pictured right) is a two time Paralympic gold medalist, the first amputee to run the 100 meters in under 11 seconds, and an avid poker player. He came to Las Vegas to play in the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event and the Ante Up for Africa Charity event. I could tell you the rest of the story but it be better to let a proper writer do that duty. Fellow blogger Michael Craig has a great writeup with Shirley’s story here. Unfortunately he was not able to “outrun” his poker opponents to reach Day 2a and will not win WSOP gold.
Also wearing Full Tilt red and white was Jack Ury, at 96 he’s simply the oldest to ever play in the WSOP Main Event. Ury has been adding to his record each year since his first Main Event in 2007 at the chipper age of 94. He was enjoying himself and the ESPN cameras were a constant audience. Ury will have to get his rest over the next few days before he comes in Day 2a with just over 23,000 in chips.
You can see the rest of the Day 1b pictures after the jump:
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Barny Boatman, Bill Edler, Bloggers on the Rail, David Pham, Erik Seidel, Fabrice Soulier, Jack Ury, Marlon Shirley, Mike Matusow, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
David Pham lead FTOPS XI Event #8 most of the way
Photo credit: Pokerlistings.com
Calling last night Big Money Sunday doesn’t quite seem to do it justice. The addition of FTOPS events and the newly upgraded $200k Double Deuce brought out a huge crowd of grinders to the virtual tables. There were 3 FTOPS events on Sunday, The Sunday Mulligan and 120,000 players creating what has to be one of the largest $20 buyin tournaments ever run.
FTOPS Event #8 – 4,411 players – $882,200 prizepool
FTOPS Event #9 – 1,332 players – $666,000 prizepool
FTOPS Event #10 – 5,325 players – $1,597,500 prizepool
The Sunday Mulligan – 1,400 players – $280,000 prizepool
$200k Double Deuce – 12,000 players – $240,000 prizepool
Just shy of 25,000 players for a prizepool of $3.6 Million over just 5 tournaments.
Full Tilt pro Matt Vengrin, former FTOPS V Event #9 winner, took down The Sunday Mulligan in the final tournament of the evening. We had several big names in online poker run deep across the 5 events including Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers with two cashes, David “The Dragon” Pham* running deep in Event #8, then Ryan Daut and Josh Arieh coming close to taking down the FTOPS HU tourments.
* – Not a real Dragon.
Details of the “monster” Big Money Sunday after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, David Pham
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
David Pham at Foxwoods World Poker Finals
Photo credit: WorldPokerTour.com
Last week was a good one for David Pham. On November 11th he finished fourth in Foxwoods World Poker Finals for $240,344 then turned around and finished third the very next day in FTOPS X Event #16 for near $112,000. By any measure, that is one fine week.
The rest of Team Full Tilt seemed to dominate the event even without collecting the win. Get the rest of the numbers after the jump.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, David Pham, Mike Matusow, WPT
Posted by Big Donkey | Filed under The Week at FTP
Last year, David Pham earned his second CardPlayerPlayer of the Year title. Not too shabby.
Now, just four months into 2008, the Dragon is chasing the title yet again. Last week, he took fifth at the WPT World Poker Challenge, which was good enough for nearly $94K in prize money. While the cash is nice (OK, very nice, if you ask us), we know David is really more excited about the fact that he’s now’s in third place in this year’s POY race, and in great position to capture yet another title.
Tags: Brian Hastings, David Pham
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