Poker From The Rail
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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
It’s been fun around the “halls” of Full Tilt Poker this week especially here in my dungeon. We saw the introduction of Annette Obrestad to the roster, FTOPS XVI finished it’s marathon, the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments 5 continues along it’s goal of sending bloggers to the WSOP, and now we prepare for the beginning of MiniFTOPS XVI. As they say, no sleep for the wicked.
FTOPS XVI concluded on Sunday with the Main Event hosted by newcomer Annette Obrestad and features a $3,000,000 Guarantee. The player pool fell just short of that mark meaning there was nearly $280,000 in money added by Full Tilt. The tournament ran for over 14 hours and once WSOP Champion Brock “bobcards2″ Parker was eliminated the remaining 5 players made a deal which saw them all winning at least $200,000. “Kirbynator” was your eventual champion taking home $327,057 for the win and also the custom avatar. During her Main Event run, Obrestad was a trooper and continued to answer questions during her “Pro Chat”, many of which were becoming a little loco. That was nothing compared to some of the comments she was drawing at her table. Later this weekend I will be posting some excerpts from the chat with her best questions and answers.
The last week of FTOPS XVI also saw several big online names claim a title making for some great final table action. The most entertaining would be the $300 6-max rebuy Event #18 which ended with a battle between two heavy weights. In the end Shannon “BLUFFforRENT” Shorr outlasted Nick “FU_15″ Maimone to take it down just a few days before his college graduation. Other big names putting their names down as FTOPS champs were Matt “I Pay Ur Rent” Iles, Tim “BegsClutch” Begley, Jeremy “thechemist83″ Gaubert, JC “PrtyPsux” Alvarado, and Mickey “Mement_mori” Petersen.
The Battle of the Bloggers 5 Challenge (hence forth known as BBT5) put several more players into the Tournament of Champions where five players will earn seats in the 2010 World Series of Poker. Half of the ToC field is now set and includes a nice mix of old school bloggers, new players to the private tournaments, and one online pro. Everyone is welcome to join us for the Poker From the Rail tournament on Monday and The Mookie on Wednesday. You can check the Battle of the Bloggers page for more details. Listed below are those who have qualified for the ToC.
jjok
maigrey
VinNay
xkm1245
dignitasODEE
Matt “All In At 420″ Stout
hoyazo
KeepFloppin
NYRambler
TexansBaby
oossuuu754
pvanharibo
MiniFTOPS XVI kicks off today featuring 30 tournaments with $7,000,000 in guaranteed money for 1/10th the buyin of the standard FTOPS series. This time around you will find three new Rush Poker Tournaments including what should be an insane $20 rebuy with a $250,000 guarantee.
Event 6: A $150K guarantee $50 + $5 Rush Poker Turbo NLHE Tournament
Event 13: A $50K guarantee $24 + $2 Rush Poker PLO Knock Out Tournament
Event 29: A $250K guarantee $20 + $2 Rush Poker NLHE Rebuy Tournament
Yet again another chance for the smaller bankrolled players to earns big bucks for a small price. Be sure to check out the MiniFTOPS XVI schedule for details, pick your game and give it a shot.
After the jump you can find the results from FTOPS XVI:
Tags: AlCantHang, BBT, BBT5, Bloggers on the Rail, FTOPS, MiniFTOPS
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 Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner
After a brief hiatus, the Top 5 Stories of the Week is back. Between April 17 and 24:
#5 – Hot Dog Harrison played catch-up…
#4 – FTOPS XVI began, featuring the all new Rush Poker tournaments…
#3 – Odonkor1 positioned himself to take up Isildur1′s mantle…
#2 – The $25k World Poker Tour Championship whittled its field to a final 6, led by David Benyamine…
#1 – Liv Boeree (pictured in a Metallica t-shirt) won the EPT San Remo…
Tags: FTOPS, hot dog harrison, Isildur1, liv boeree, odonkor1
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Things were cruising right along in the latest incarnation of the FTOPS series. The fields in FTOPS XV were generating huge prizepools with even a few decent overlays to be found in the non-standard formats like HORSE and 7-game mix events. Several players walked away with a big bump in their personal bankroll with their first FTOPS victory. Then the final day rolled around and the cash payouts exploded. If you include the completion of the 2-Day Event #24, the players walked away with a combined prizepool that topped $6,000,000 across just 4 tournaments. Massive.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, FTOPS
Posted by Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner
I noticed from AlCantHang’s FTOPS post (below) that an old friend of mine just won an FTOPS event (Saturday’s Event #6, the $500 Pot-Limit Omaha 6-max tournament). Zimp721 and I used to play at the same game in college. We hadn’t spoken in a while, so I called to say hello and ask if I could interview him for Poker from the Rail.
He seemed a little more full of himself than I remember…
Find the interview after the jump:
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: FTOPS
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Big Money Sunday finished off a monster FTOPS XV weekend that saw nearly 15,000 players in just the three FTOPS events alone. Players entering Event #10 even found themselves with a little extra prize pool money courtesy of the fine FTP folks in the form at a $95,000 overlay in the $1,500,000 Guarantee. Through the first 10 tournaments we’ve created 10 new players with the FTOPS avatar jersey, we have yet to see someone add a second (or third or fourth) title to their resume although Yuvee “yuvee04″ Bronshtein was running deep but fell short.
Chad “jse81″ Bastista was the big winner of the night collecting a cool $225,000 for winning Event #10, which ran over 14 hours even after a deal was reached. He was just one of the five players to have a 6-digit payday. In total we’ve had 9 players win over $100,000 in a single FTOPS tournament and we are not even halfway through the series. The raw numbers show 27,469 players won $6,591,200 for a nice tournament average and things will continue to build.
CardRunner Isaac Baron jumps to the top of “completely unofficial” Full Tilt red letter pro leaderboard when he just missed the final table of Event #10 which also had Chris Ferguson also run deep. It’s been a slow start for the big stable of bounty friendly pros with them collecting just over $33,000 of the available money, one third of that coming from Baron’s 11th place finish. There will be plenty of chances this week for them to catch up and other players to collect their bounties turning the event into a freeroll.
There are still 15 events left with satellites starting with just a few Full Tilt points. Many players have recorded big scores after winning their way into the event on the cheap. Beat a small ball field and then crush the big games. Full Tilt also continues to run the FTOPS Satellite Challenge for a few extra duckets.
Some miscellaneous numbers through the first weekend of games:
Number of events: 10
Guarantee Prizepool: $6,000,000
Actual Prizepool: $$6,591,200
Largest Prizepool: $1,500,000 (Event #10 NLHE)
Smallest Prizepool: $$166,800.00 (Event #5 6-max NLHE)
Overlay (1 event): $95,400
Number of players: 27,469
Players with over $100,000 payout: 9
Largest Payout: $225,000.00 (Chad “jse81″ Bastista)
Largest FTP pro Payout: $10,800 (Isaac Baron)
Total FTP pro cash (#): 29
Total FTP pro cash ($): $33,228.89
You can find the final table results and FTP pro numbers after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, FTOPS
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 Dave McCarthy | Filed under Bloggers Corner
Hello Railers,
This is my first post, and I’m honored to be joining AlCantHang as a blogger here at Poker from the Rail.
I plan to post regularly about general poker news, as well as happenings within the Full Tilt community. The rest – news commentary, poker humor, strategy essays – I’d like to leave to all you readers. I’ve created an email address, DaveFromTheRail@gmail.com, for you to submit anything you would like to see up here. Ideally, this blog will contain a great deal of reader generated content.
If you have any comments, criticisms, or just need to get a bad beat story off your chest, please feel free to email me.
Here’s a quick roundup of general and Full Tilt news, which should serve as an example of the kinds of posts I’ll be producing:
General Poker News:
On Monday, a New Jersey State Senate committee, citing potential revenue gains, approved a bill to amend the state constitution to allow sports betting in Atlantic City casinos and New Jersey racetracks. The measure would pave the way for possible legalization of intrastate online gambling. The point is moot, however, unless the federal government eliminates its ban on sports betting. (Federal law bans sports betting in all but Nevada, Delaware, Montana, and Oregon; only limited parlay wagering is allowed in the last three. Barney Frank (D-MA) is leading the charge in Washington to legalize and regulate online gambling.)
If the bill is approved by the state legislature, it would be sent via referendum to the people of New Jersey.
The Pros This Week:
Tom “durrrr” Dwan published his first blog post of 2010 at durrrr.com. The post is titled “a long year in recap, and isildur part 1″ and in it the Full Tilt Red Pro discusses swings, Isildur1, and some of the impetus behind his offering the fan favorite durrrr Challenge. Dwan also promises to post more often this year, announcing that he will donate $10,000 to charity any month he doesn’t write at least three posts.
February 8 must have been a busy day for Dwan. After blogging, he played 883 hands with Patrik Antonius and extended his lead in the Challenge by $314,828 to just under $1.4 million. You can watch the biggest hands replayed and check official Challenge stats at FullTiltPoker.com/durrrr-vs-antonius.
New At the Academy:
The Full Tilt Poker Academy, which offers teaching videos, interactive lessons, and more, recently added some new content, including an interview of Tom Dwan by Phil Gordon. In a smart and candid discussion, the Dean of the Poker Academy asks the young star about the durrrr Challenge, improving one’s game, and what it takes to be a world class player.
Full Tilt News:
The Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) XV kicks off Wednesday at 9pm ET with a $200 NLHE tournament hosted by Erik Seidel. Check FullTiltPoker.com for the full schedule of events, list of challenges, and all other things FTOPS.
Tags: Barney Frank, durrrr Challenge, Erik Seidel, FTOPS, Full Tilt Poker Academy, Phil Gordon
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
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