Posts Tagged ‘David Pham’

FTOPS XIV Wrap Up

FTOPS XIV FTOPS XIV Wrap Up

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.

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Big Money Sunday – October 11th

David PhamAnother 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:

* Not a real dragon

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2009 World Series of Poker – Main Event Day 1b Pictures

marlon shirley main event day 1b ids 5864 impdi 2009 World Series of Poker   Main Event Day 1b PicturesThere 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:

jack ury main event day1b  ids8439 impdi 2009 World Series of Poker   Main Event Day 1b Pictures

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Big Money Sunday – February 8th

david pham Big Money Sunday   February 8th

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.

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Full Tilt at Foxwoods World Poker Finals

david pham foxwoods Full Tilt at Foxwoods World Poker Finals

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.

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The Week at FTP: It’s Pham-tastic!

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.

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