Posts Tagged ‘Greg Mueller’
FTOPS XIV Wrap Up
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.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, David Pham, FTOPS, Greg Mueller
FTOPS XIV Event #19 – “FBT” Wins
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
As you might imagine, things have been a little crazy around here for the past few days. I made a trip out west for the November Nine, watched Michael Craig pay off a prop bet, and witnessed a 21-year old kid become the newest World Series of Poker champion. You will excuse me just a little bit for missing out on my near daily updates during FTOPS XIV which kicked off more than a week ago. Now that I am back in the safety of the great Northeast I am finally catching up on some things I missed.
That’s not to say I wasn’t keeping an eye on things which were going down with the online world, it just couldn’t be my highest priority. I was really looking forward to throwing yet another image of David “The Dragon” Pham* for his victory in FTOPS XIV Event #14 and because I like adding the “*-not a real dragon tag” to as many posts as possible. But it turns out Greg “FBT” Mueller** had other plans.
Coming into the day, only one Full Tilt pro has ever won an FTOPS event that they were hosting. Erick Lindgren accomplished that feat by taking down FTOPS VII Event #9 for just under $300,000. In fact, before today only Lindgren, Gavin Smith, and David Pham have been able to bring home an FTOPS victory for the red letter pros. Greg Mueller found himself in his comfort zone today.
Merriam and Webster Dictionary
Main Entry: comfort zone
Function: noun
2. the level at which one functions with ease and familiarity
The game was Limit Hold’em, something Mueller is very familiar with over his entire career. I am assuming he was hosting this event since he won two bracelet in the variation this summer at the WSOP. His career Limit Hold’em WSOP resume includes 8 cashes (out of 19 total), 4 final table, 1 second place finish (NLHE/LHE Mix game included), and the 2 WSOP bracelets. Throw in a Seven Card Stud final table and you’d have to believe that he feels pretty comfortable slinging the chips in a limit game.
He was holding, or near, the chip lead for most of the latter parts of the tournament and came to the 6-handed final table with a chance to make history. There were a few opponent’s that would battle him for a very long time. OmadJoped was hoping to become just the third player to win two FTOPS in the same series and James “P0KERPR0″ Campbell was the only other major player. It turned out to be Campbell and Mueller who would finish heads up for the title with Campbell putting up a decent fight but finally succumbing to the former hockey player.
Mueller collected $36,081.50 for his efforts and had a little encouragement from fellow Tilter Mike Matusow just before the final table:
Mike Matusow (Observer): greg fbt mueller is my hero
GregFBTMueller: thx mikey
Mike Matusow (Observer): dear god how u get cards like that
With that I will call it yet another day (night/morning). I will return tomorrow with a full update from the previous tournaments in the series.
*-Not a real dragon
**-Full Blown Tilt
Popularity: 1% [?]
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, FTOPS, Greg Mueller
2009 World Series of Poker – Day 2a Pictures
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Sometimes things just go way over the top when you’re dealing with the biggest poker tournament in the world. You’ll see some crazy things along the rails, loud player disagreements, whack jobs dressed in all types of getups looking for camera attention. Then you have the times when a table pulls the attention of every player and media outlet in the room.
Actor/comedian Brad Garrett drew a table that was far away from the rail and virtually in the center of the blue section. 5 time bracelet and 1984 Main Event winner Berry Johnston was also at the table. Garrett was laughing it up with the players at the table and anyone who would listen. To the point where his table was completely surrounded by every media outlet with a badge to get there. Witness the picture above and below.
Before long players at the other tables were begging the floor staff to deal with the situation. It will certainly make good TV for ESPN when it airs, but neither Garrett or Johnston would move on to Day 3.
Images from the rest of Day 2a after the jump:
Popularity: 14% [?]
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Amanda Baker, Berry Johnston, Beth Shak, Billy Argyros, Bloggers on the Rail, Chris Ferguson, Fabrice Soulier, Gavin Smith, Greg Mueller, Jack Ury, Mike Matusow, Roland de Wolfe, WSOP
2009 World Series of Poker – Main Event Day 1a Pictures
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Perry Friedman rocks the Full Tilt Poker “grill” to go with his corn rows
I’ve generally stuck to doing a “Week in Pictures” during the preliminary events of the WSOP but I now realize that I’ll be getting more photos than I know what to do with now that we’ve come to the Main Event. So now we’re going to switch up to daily posts as long as we continue to get quality images.
Day 1a started with 1,116 and finished with 821 players. A good number of Team Full Tilt survived to see Day 2.
More photos after the jump:
Popularity: 8% [?]
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Allen Cunningham, Beth Shak, Bloggers on the Rail, Eli Elezra, Erik Cajelais, Gavin Smith, Greg Mueller, Jerry Yang, Jon Turner, Michael Gracz, Perry Friedman, Roland de Wolfe, WSOP
2009 World Series of Poker Day 34 – The Final Stampede
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
I’m not necessarily the most brilliant person in the world, but today I was smarter than the average bear. Today is the final $1,500 “donkament” of the 2009 World Series of Poker and I realized my timing would bring me to the Amazon Room halls smack in the middle of the Final Lemur Stampede. Instead I took my time getting to the media area, a little orange juice and a tasty muffin. A nice casual walk through the Rio. By the time I strolled to my seat all 2,800 hopefuls were tossing chips around like so many useless pieces of ceramic.
Timing is crucial on these days, restart tournaments have already been pushed back by an hour and the poker kitchen is running out of lukewarm cardboard pizzas. Ashtrays and trashcans are overflowing. You cannot get caught on the wrong end of the hallway when the tournament goes on break, the “salmon swimming upstream” metaphor is far too easy.
Of course this is not the big news of the day. Day 4 of the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. World Championship will bring us the final two tables and into the money. 19 players are looking for the big prize at the end and Full Tilt Poker will have 6 representatives in the remaining field with Gus Hansen, Huck Seed, Chau Giang, Erik Seidel, and David Chiu looking up at tournament leader Vitaly Lunkin. If Lunkin is able to pull off the win he will have taken down the two biggest buyin events of the 2009 World Series of Poker. His bracelet earlier this year was in the $40,000 No Limit Hold’em 40th Anniversary event.
Unfortunately for the media and fans, the restart has been moved to the much smaller green section were it’s nearly impossible to get a good view unless they got on the rail early and never leave.
The top story this morning has been yet another multiple bracelet winner at the 2009 World Series of Poker. Full Tilt pro Greg “FBT” Mueller won his second bracelet of the year, both wins coming in Limit Hold’em events. He is the fourth player to win at least two events and the second Team Full Tilt member after Phil Ivey. He will receive his bracelet at the ceremony today and stand for the Canadian National Anthem.
For the record, 2003 was the year with the most multiple event winners. The historic Chris Moneymaker Main Event win overshadowed a year in which 6 players won two bracelets. Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Layne Flack, Phil Hellmuth, Men “The Master “Nguyen, and Johnny “(censored)” Chan all added jewelry to each wrist that year. We won’t get there this year without some miracles, but a fantastic year none the less.
Several restarts are occurring today and their chip counts are after the jump:
![greg mueller ev50 final table ev50 final table isb 3125 impdi impdi 2009 World Series of Poker Day 34 The Final Stampede](/poker-from-the-rail/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/greg_mueller_ev50_final_table_ev50_final_table_isb_3125_impdi_impdi.jpg "Greg \\"FBT\\" Mueller wins his second bracelet at the 2009 World Series of Poker")
![2009 wsop 75 2009 World Series of Poker Day 34 The Final Stampede](/poker-from-the-rail/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/2009_wsop_75.jpg "Greg \\"FBT\\" Mueller\'s second bracelet ceremony")
Popularity: 23% [?]
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Greg Mueller, WSOP
2009 World Series of Poker – Greg “FBT” Mueller wins second bracelet
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Greg “FBT” Mueller heads up for $1,500 Limit Shootout bracelet
The third time is a charm. For the third time this week a member of Team Full Tilt Poker found themselves heads up for a World Series of Poker bracelet. The first two time Michael Craig and Lee Watkinson had to accept runner up money. Tonight Greg “FBT” Mueller completed the deal, winning his second WSOP bracelet of the year and 7th over all for Team Full Tilt Poker. He took down the $1,500 Limit Shootout after winning the $10,000 Limit Hold’em World Championship earlier in the series.
Mueller also becomes the fourth player this year to win multiple bracelets, following up Jeff Lisandro (3), Phil Ivey (2), and Brock Parker (2).
2009 World Series of Poker bracelet winners for Team Full Tilt:
Phil Ivey (2)
Greg “FBT” Mueller (2)
Vitaly Lunkin (1)
Nick Schulman (1)
Roland De Wolfe (1)
More on the victory tomorrow morning.
Popularity: 25% [?]
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Greg Mueller, WSOP
2009 World Series of Poker – Mueller brings home a bracelet
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
![ev33 ft imm3697 impdi 2009 World Series of Poker Mueller brings home a bracelet](/poker-from-the-rail/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/ev33-ft_imm3697-impdi.jpg "Greg \\"FBT\\" Mueller at the 2009 World Series of Poker")
After two straight evenings without seeing a Team Full Tilt member bring home a bracelet, I started to become concerned. There were five bracelets already in the bag going into Day 22 and some great chances to add more. Greg “FBT” Mueller collected his first World Series of Poker bracelet after a long, difficult final table in the $10,000 Limit Hold’em World Championship.
Deepstack, slow structure limit tournaments truly test the grinders. Chip counts float all over the map and leads constantly changed. It was the second day of 12+ hours at the table playing a game that drives some crazy. It takes a special talent to bring home the title in a big limit event. After 1 in the morning, Mueller finally dispatched his heads up opponent Pat Pezzin of Toronto, ON. Canadians finish 1st and 2nd, eh?
Mueller is a former professional hockey player (see previous post for coincidental comparisons) who was sitting at his final table when it was interrupted when the Stanley Cup was moved to the bracelet ceremony podium. He was mere inches from the top prize in both his former and current professions. After seven final table appearance and two runner up showings, Mueller finally has a piece of history for himself.
![ev33 ft imm3706 impdi 2009 World Series of Poker Mueller brings home a bracelet](/poker-from-the-rail/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/ev33-ft_imm3706-impdi.jpg "Greg \\"FBT\\" Mueller at the 2009 World Series of Poker")
Greg “FBT” Mueller wins the $10,000 Limit Hold’em World Championship
Popularity: 25% [?]
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Greg Mueller, WSOP
The Pros Speak: Greg Mueller – Part Two
Posted by The Captain | Filed under The Pros Speak
Last week we presented Part One of our interview with Full Tilt Pro Greg Mueller on what it takes to succeed at the World Series of Poker. This week we’ll continue along those lines and go even further in depth on tournament poker as a whole. Enjoy!
Speaking of learning as you play, do you think it’s important to discuss your play or specific hands after tournaments?
Well, it all depends on who you’re discussing it with and why you’re discussing it. If you’re doing this to get sympathy, to tell a bad beat story, it’s just not worth it. If you’re talking with good poker players, you can get a lot of good information and a lot of insight. I don’t discuss hands as much as I used to, but when I was getting started, I’d talk with the people that I hung out with about key hands all the time, because you can get so much information and learn from the experience. Whatever the case is, sometimes you think you know a lot and after a conversation, you wake up.
Popularity: 7% [?]
Tags: Greg Mueller, WSOP
The Pros Speak: Greg Mueller
Posted by The Captain | Filed under The Pros Speak
One aspect of the WSOP that makes it interesting is the number of “amateurs” that end up playing – and frequently going deep – in various events. This is especially true of $1.5K buy-in events, where runners frequently number in the thousands. One of the questions that this seems to beg is, “what’s it take to play in a WSOP event?” While the obvious answer is buy-in money, the proverbial chip and chair are only the beginning.
To get a professional opinion on actually making it happen, our cohort in Vegas was able to get a few minutes of Greg Mueller’s time. Here’s his take, in his own words:
Popularity: 6% [?]
Tags: Greg Mueller, WSOP
