Poker From The Rail
a Poker Blog brought to you by Full Tilt Poker
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Erik Seidel has been nicknamed “Seiborg” by our friends at The Micros. Once again he went into a High Stakes tournament looking to destroy and that’s exactly what he did.
The World Poker Tour was making running it’s final tournament of the season and added a $100,000 buyin Super High Roller tournament at the Bellagio to cap it. 29 players entered and it took 3 days to crown the winner. The final table was stacked as expected with only the final 5 making the money, including Seidel, Erick Lindgren, Danial Negreanu, Justin Bonomo, and Vivek Rajkumar. Not too shabby for a “small field” tournament.
Once Erick Lindgren eliminated Daniel Negreanu in 3rd place we were guaranteed to have a member of Team Full Tilt capture the title. After heads up play was underway, it was decided to take a break to resume at noon the next day. After a battle, Seidel added to his incredible 2011 run with the victory and just over $1,000,000. That brings his total for the first 5 months of the year to $4.3million.
I was suggest taking him in your Fantasy WSOP league.
The lastest run of the MiniFTOPS series came to a close and was a big success after the shock of FTOPS XX. Over 160,000 jumped into the fray creating a prizepool of $7,313,591 which comes in less than $9million short of it’s big brother series at 1/10th of the price. The series also concluded without posting a single overlay including the usual Stud/8 event is usually a lock.
Mother Russia blasting out of the gates picking up 3 of the first 8 titles and dominated throughout throughout the fortnight. Russian players would go on to capture 11 of the 45 silver MiniFTOPS jerseys with the United Kingdom coming in a distant second with 4 victories. The Americas continued their struggles picking up just 3 total for both continenants (2 for Brazil, 1 for Canada).
You can’t miss how the jerseys are now spread around the globe when considering the list of titles per country.
11 – Russia
4 – United Kingdom
3 – Canada
3 – Germany
3 – Netherlands
2 – Australia
2 – Austria
2 – Brazil
2 – Denmark
2 – Italy
2 – Poland
2 – Sweden
1 – Belgium
1 – India
1 – Norway
1 – Portugal
1 – Romania
1 – Serbia
1 – Ukraine
Next up on the menu will be the 2011 World Series of Poker in the desert oasis of Las Vegas. Players will begin their journey to a bracelet in a little over a week and we’ll be there to bring you the updates. Keep an eye out this week for our 2010 World Series of Poker highlights brought to you by some of those who witnessed it.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Erik Seidel, MiniFTOPS
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
This was the “slow” Sunday on Full Tilt, the weekend sandwiched between Double Guarantees week and the kickoff of FTOPS XX on April 17th but how that definition was crushed with a nearly $2,000,000 prizepool in the biggest game of the day along with the $1,000 Onyx Cup Qualifier. So while there wasn’t the kind of action we’ve seen over the last several weeks, there were still plenty of opportunities out there for players to pick up a big prize.
$1,922,400 was the prizepool in the biggest tournament of the day after the guarantee was bumped to $1,500,000 and switched to a Multi-entry format. A significant increase in money from the standard $750,000 which usually accompanies the $200+16 buyin and nearly 10,000 players took advantage off the field. 1,080 entries made the money but it was “Mr Boogerz” (nice name sir) who would take the top prize of $307,584 for the win.
We saw another interesting deal made in the Sunday Brawl to kickoff the day when “lindah3″ finished in 3rd but banked more money then the runner up and eventual winner “Exan13″. The $200,000 Guarantee (Rebuy) had another stellar final table on display with Full Tilt pro Jono Karamalikis, Michael “grindtherail” Lavin, and Keven “Stamdogg” Stammen who would beat Stan “stanman420″ Lee after a long heads up battle. Kevin “Wu_Wizard” MacPhee was the player of note to make the Sunday Mulligan final table but drop out of the tournament in 6th.
The most entertaining final table was in the second Onyx Cup Qualifier, a $1,000 buyin satellite to the high stakes poker tournament in May. At stake was a winner-take-all $100,000 seat in the first Onyx Cup event and 3 of the 4 final players were all world class. “Eldos” from Kazakhstan was facing three players with six WSOP bracelets between them in Daniel “FakeSky” Alaei (3), Josh Arieh (2), and David “Bussa Buss” Baker (1). After a long battle, the anonymous “Eldos” would outlast, outflop the rail favorite David Baker to book a seat in the biggest tournament of his life. Look forward to meeting the mystery man on May 11th.
With the conclusion of Big Money Sunday it is time to turn the grinder attention to FTOPS XX which starts with a nice $3,000,000 in the first event. Satellites for all FTOPS events are running around the clock, pick up a big score on the cheap. Full Tilt also recently announced the schedule for MiniFTOPS XX for our lower bankrolled players. Plenty of chances for our players to inflate their bankroll.
Big Money Sunday results listed below.
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, FTOPS, MiniFTOPS, Onyx Cup Series
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Another Sunday has gone by with yet another big round of tournaments on Full Tilt. It was the first day of spring but that didn’t stop the grinders from staying in door to play in a half dozen events which would last until the early Monday morning. Standard majors, MiniFTOPS XIX final day, and the monthly $1,000,000 Guarantee all made for a busy day online.
Over 45,000 entries in the MiniFTOPS XIX Main Event created a prizepool in excess of $3,000,000 and 1st place walked away with nearly $400,000 after a heads up deal. 16 hours after it began, “KOMIJENDO” claimed the Main Event jersey and $396,578 after outdueling “Demon1531″ who will comfort himself in bundles of virtual money worth over $360,000. We had a few big names run deep in the massive event including Nick “FU_15″ Maimone and Jon “FatalError” Aguiar but none were able to break through to the final table.
As coincidence would have it (or perhaps just a well timed promotion), the monthly $1,000,000 Guarantee also ran this week and drew a nice solid 2,000 players to run the same time as the Main Event. While this tournament ended much earlier, we had a chance to see a big name take it down. Monster Tom “kingofcards” Marchese just missed the final table but Darren “darrenelias” Elias, “Ozzy 87″ Sheikh came closest but finished 2nd and 3rd respectively.
Next will be no different than the last few weeks, the days of the average Sunday grind are gone for good as this Sunday begins the fun times of Double Guarantees Week. As the name states, all guarantees are doubled for the week along with being Multi-entry tournaments. It all concludes on April 3rd when each Big Money Sunday tournament will have Triple Guarantees throughout the entire day.
Hit the satellites and get in the action.
Big Money Sunday and MiniFTOPS XIX results after the jump:
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, MiniFTOPS
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers Corner
It was a big day on the site with the monthly $1,000,000 Guarantee hitting at the same time as the final events of MiniFTOPS XVIII. That created two prizepools over $1,000,000 and five players with paydays over 6 digits if you include the final day of Event #29. While spending my day railing I was having difficultly coming up with a theme for today’s post. Nothing spectacular was occurring deep in the final MiniFTOPS event, with the final one not finishing until the sun was up on the east coast, and the best final table at the time was in the $200k Guarantee. That table featured Lauren “locoenlacabeza” Kling, Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim, Bryan “Boston3Party” Leskowitz, and former FTOPS winner “LuCkyTDoGG”.
This was until the $1,000,000 Guarantee started getting deep and one name jumped near the top. I had to double check a few times on the authenticity, but sure enough we had “missgrinder” ready to make a huge final table. “missgrinder” is none other than the better half of 2010 November Nine Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi (pictured above in the stands). She was near the top of the field while play condensed down and came to the final table as one of three players over a million in chips. She hung in tough and played well down the stretch but was unable to defeat table bully “dlanger610″. She finished the day collecting $141,000 for her efforts and easily the biggest rail at the final table.
While researching today’s post I could only find a little on the winner “dlanger610″. The best I came up with is being banned from the 2+2 forum. Congrats on that great accomplishment, I need to work on my efforts to get banned.
The rest of the evening was spent contemplating how much money was added to the prizepool of our smaller rolled players. The were very few huge names making a splash during MiniFTOPS XVIII meaning there are lot of players making a bump to the bankroll. I’ve spend a good part of the last few years railing tournaments both online and live (see the title of the blog) but found very few names marquee names deep in the fields. Over 210,000 players bought into this incarnation of the MiniFTOPS series pocketing well over $7.3million, I’m willing to bet the lower limit cash games are going to be juicy for the next few weeks.
Big Money Sunday and MiniFTOPS XVIII results below.
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, MiniFTOPS
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
I missed the beginning of MiniFTOPS XVIII in the middle of last week as I was winging my way from the frigid east coast to practically balmy Las Vegas. This trip to the desert was 99% vacation with just a little work thrown in as a mass pilgrimage of poker minded bloggers descended upon the city for their annual gathering. It was an extended weekend of foolish cash mix games, impromptu insanity around random drinking holes, talking to old friends, and a nice tournament hosted by Aria Casino. I can be forgiven for leaving my laptop in the home office to enjoy a few days off, even if that meant missing the beginning of the latest MiniFTOPS series.
I will be back later this week with some of the sordid tales of degeneracy but until then we have a little business to cover.
Holding the microphone on the right is Kristy “guess16″ Arnett, part of the multi-talented staff over at PokerNews who made the news this weekend instead of reporting it. Arnett was tweeting along happily as she was going through the Heads Up Event #12, letting her followers know when she won a match, neglecting her other events, and finally creeping towards the top spots. She made it into the Final 4 to face online monster Evan “NEONPILS99″ Parkes (nearly $2,000,000 in tournament earnings on Full Tilt alone) but found a lot of luck, spiking a two out river, to move on. She made quick work of the final table and another “friend of the blog” wins a big event.
16 events in the MiniFTOPS XVIII and we’ve already doled out over $3,000,000 in prizemoney with just a few small overlays along the way. This smaller buyin series generally doesn’t bode well for the big red letter pros and this one is now different. Pascal Perrault leads them all with one near final table and just under $1,800. Too many hair trigger mines planted in these huge fields and most have a hard time pulling away from the big live games going on at the moment, representing just 1/4 of 1 percent of the players (315 red letter pros out of 118,674 players).
There are still plenty of opportunities to get your piece of the action as we are just at the halfway point. Check out the MiniFTOPS XVIII main page for details and satellites continue to run 24 hours a day. First half results are below.
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, MiniFTOPS
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
It was another massive Sunday on Full Tilt as MiniFTOPS XVII wrapped up it’s run as well as the regularly scheduled Big Monday Sunday tournaments including the ramped up $1,000,000 Guarantee. The MiniFTOPS tournaments alone created over $2,400,000 in prize money alone (over $2.5m if you include the Double Deuce) for tiny buyin. Six-digit wins were being handed out at a steady pace.
The evening wound up with Grayson “The_Dean221″ Nichols collecting the special MiniFTOPS jersey for winning the Main Event along with over $150,000 after making a heads up deal. Matt “I Pay Ur Rent” Iles was the top name at the final table but was only able to finish 8th.
It was a rough series for most of the big name players who often found the waters choppy and unpredictable. There is something to be said of the caliber of play throughout but those who dodged everything were rewarded handsomely in the end. Jeremy “thechemist83″ Gaubert came close to winning Event #22 but settled for a runner up finish. Cardrunner Media Director “pvanharibo” found herself in the middle of a heater with a final table in Event #16 to go along with her victories in the the $42,000 and Turbo $20,000 Guarantees. Taylor “Elmastermind” McFarland seems to be the most well known online grinder to pull out a MiniFTOPS title taking down Event #33 on the last day for $77,000.
While this also wasn’t the greatest series on the world for the red letter pros, Scott Clements continues to prove some weird super power win it comes to the small buyin craziness. He cashed in 7 of the events the entered and he didn’t play every tournament. Jon “Pearljammer” Turner fought his was to a final table 5th place finish in Event #16 for nearly $3,000 and the unofficial title “top red letter pro money winner for MiniFTOPS XVII” (which is tough to put on a trophy).
The big guns were also taking their spots in the Big Money Sunday games only created another $2,000,000 in prize money and the stars came out to play. Word from the Borgata was most of the internet grinders decided their WPT Main Event would be on Saturday to clear up time for Sunday’s grind. Adam “Roothlus” Levy had a nice with a 10th place in the Sunday Brawl and 33rd in the $200,000 Guarantee. Adam “csimmsux” Geyer also finished deep in both the $200k and Sunday Mulligan. Tom “kingsofcards” Marchese used his day off to work out a runner up finish in the Sunday Mulligan.
There were plenty of big names remaining on the final two tables of the $1,000,000 Guarantee with a chance to win it all including Dave “doubledave22″ D’Alesandro, Vanessa “PrincessDonk” Cheng, Stuart Paterson, James “P0KERPR0″ Campbell, and Chance “Chances Cards” Kornuth. After a 4 way deal was made it was “justgobroke” who took home the title and $150,000 but it was Kyle “KJulius10″ Julius who may have the last laugh for collecting even more ($163,000) for a second place finish.
Your crew here at Poker From the Rail also staked 5 players (writing contest winners) near the end of MiniFTOPS XVII and followed along with their progress. ”Atlwildguy” finished 781 out of 1,560 in Event #28, while his Razz counterpart took the money and ran, unregistering. In the Main Event, out of 15,527 entrants, “Skred” finished 12,807, “Flopmearoyal12″ finished 8,644, and “ThePicotrain” finished 1,387, good for $120.
You can find all the results after the jump:
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, MiniFTOPS
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Greetings from beach-side on the coast of North Carolina where your hard charging blogging servant will spend a few days unwinding before the final push of the year. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t paying close attention to big action online which was heightened by some insanely large fields in the MiniFTOPS XVII events. Just the three small buyin tournaments in the series on Sunday drew just shy of 50,000 players and $1,000,000 in prize money.
I’ll go ahead and call Jesse “JMaster130″ Cohen the winner of the day even though he didn’t come close to the biggest score online. Cohen began the day with a near final table appearance in the Sunday Brawl but capped his night with a victory in the MiniFTOPS Heads Up tournament for $29,000. Leo “Pechorin” Wolpert come very close to repeating Shaun Deebs accomplishment last week by taking down the $750,000 Guarantee but came up just short. The $150,000 Guarantee (rebuy) almost supplied us with an incredible final table. With 18 players left in the field, we were looking at some huge names sticking around including Full Tilt’s Brandon Adams, 2010 November Niner Joseph Cheong, Luke “IWEARGOGGLES” Staudenmaier, and Jim “reelhugefish” Gilbert. In the end the red letter pros fell short but Staudenmaier picked up the slack for the big name pros with the victory.
Perhaps the player who had the best heater during the week would be “Hippychik420″ with a 5th place finish in MiniFTOPS XVII Event #4 and then later a victory in Event #6 to vault her atop the points leaderboard. ”Her” ROI currently stands somewhere around 150%, certainly sustainable.
MiniFTOPS XVII continues today and it’s already been a very successful series. Over $2,500,000 in prize money and only one event offered up an overlay, and that was a whopping $84. While these events are always a little brutal on the red letter pros, Scott Clements seems to have a handle on these inflated fields with 5 cashes and a final table in Event #4. Satellites are still running around the clock, don’t miss out on your chance for a big payday for little coin.
Big Money Sunday and MiniFTOPS XVII results after the jump:
Tags: AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, MiniFTOPS
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
Jeremiah Smith in the foreground, Phil Ivey’s favorite masseuse in the background
Photo credit: Wicked Chops Poker
Another Big Money Sunday is in the books along with MiniFTOPS XVI and this one brought a some huge paydays. I can sit here discussing many theories on why it happened but this time around we saw 22 of the 30 events with some kind of overlay in the form of free money from Full Tilt Poker. Whatever the reason, the series sported over $1,000,000 in added money across all events meaning over 15% of the prizepool was provided by your friendly FTP Poker room. That is great value no matter how you look at it.
The cream of the crop was MiniFTOPS XVI Main Event which went over it’s $1,000,000 Guarantee for just a $70+$5 buyin and drew nearly 15,000 players. The structure was slow and deep making for a 17 hour tournament which finished up in the wee hours here in my part of the world. “RioMata” was your Main Event champion further advancing the premise of making big payout events available to the lower bankrolled. There were few events which were dominated by the big name players but the fields were incredibly tough throughout the series. Our top money earner for a single event was “Salamander6″ who collected an even $150,000 for the 2-Day event title. ”mc4chess” was the runaway player at the top of the Tournament Leaderboard with a “green loving” 420 point total. He made the cash in six MiniFTOPS XVI events with 2 final tables and an outright victory in Event #4.
With the conclusion of the Main Event it hit me. This will be the last tournament series I cover until a little event called the World Series of Poker.
Tags: AlCantHang, BBT, BBT5, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, Jeremiah Smith, MiniFTOPS
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
As the name of our blog indicates, we spend a lot of time railing poker games throughout the week and yesterday did not disappoint at all. I’ve become used to the standard series of railbird messages during the huge Sunday games full of beggars and fanboys. Most are harmless and the more annoying are eventually caught in the automated spam filter, others mix things up with a fine combination of horrible grammar and the constant chirp chatter of ALL UPPERCASE TYPING. Occasionally things go way beyond what could be expected from polite society (re: Annette Obrestad’s first red pro tournament rail) or common sense poker strategy (re: bad players telling WSOP bracelet winners how bad they play).
Throw in last night’s combination of high buyin games along with the lower rolled tables in MiniFTOPS and there was a goldmine of insipid blathering from a bunch of passenger-seat advisors. One of the great draws of Full Tilt Poker is the ability to chat with the pros/players at the tables but I am not shocked when fellow participants find it necessary to turn off their observer chat. It seems Amanda “Mandy B” Baker was last night’s pro to ridicule as she found herself getting closer to a possible final table appearance in the $750,000. In the end she came up just short in 11th place and set the rail off on their own to editorialize her play for the next 15 minutes.
Good times on the rail.
Tags: AlCantHang, BBT, BBT5, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, Jim McManus, MiniFTOPS
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
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