In all the excitement of the November Nine, FTOPS XIV, and the Isildur1 cash game craziness I completely lost track of the upcoming $25k Heads-Up PLO World Championship.

In addition to the standard Big Money Sunday games, today at 15:00ET brings a tournament that will feature most of the top players from the online and live poker world. The buyin alone will narrow the field to the best players in Pot Limit Omaha, the game which has quickly taken over as the HU game for those risking huge swings. Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius are already registered and it’s only a matter of time before newly minted member Tom “durrrr” Dwan is in the field. You’ll find Andy Bloch and Erik Seidel signed up as well as “Annette_15″ Obrestad and crazy man Tony G. It wouldn’t be a high stakes Heads-Up these days if you didn’t see Isildur1 registered for the tournament.

The field will be capped at 64 and we halfway there. Full Tilt continues to run satellites for this incredible event, chances to win yourself on “the cheap”. The tournament ID is 116764959, the satellites are listed in the lobby.  I will be surprised if it does not fill before the start leaving a small number of players shooting for part of the $1,600,000 prizepool.

I will be there along the rail to catch and report that action. Look for updates.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

$25k Heads-Up PLO World Championship

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I was minding my own business after a casual day of live cash games/drinking when my trusty wifi-enabled communication devices began chirping and chiming away. Everyone who knew of my associate with The Tilt began texting and twittering about the cash games blowing up with huge pots, all the big game grinders were getting their “two cents” involved. Pot Limit Omaha, No Limit Hold’em, and the 7-Game Mix table were packed with obscene amounts of honest-to-god real money cash that are unimaginable to the vast majority of the poker world. There are many huge poker players who won’t go near these levels.

I did what a respectable member of the poker community would do, especially one whose charter involves keeping an eye on the big games and big names. I found a way to fire up the Full Tilt Poker software and witness some of the craziness for myself. I found all the action spread across several different lobbies with the largest games being found in PLO and 7-game involving Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, David Benyamine, Brian Townsend, Cole South and Abe “EazyPeazy” Mosseri. Notably absent was new Tilter Tom “durrrr” Dwan who was in London preparing for, and playing in, his “durrrr Million Dollar Challenge”. The Challenge didn’t stop Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies from taking time from his preparations to get in a little action.

Most notably involved was the mysterious Isildur1, it seems all we can figure out about this player is that he’s from Sweden and he’s got a bit of the gamble in him. Isildur1 was a regular in the higher stakes but came out of the blue to blast away at the very highest levels running against those accustomed to the rarefied air. Before Dwan hopped a plane across the pond it was reported the Isildur1 came in an relieved his bankroll of over $3,000,000. His name has been mentioned by every outlet that covers poker and the race is on to find out his/her real identity. Dwan even went so far as to issue a challenge for him to become part of the Live Heads Up matches in London. Isildur1’s lack of response was his decline.

I have a habit of saying “Mother Variance is a right bitch” to just about anyone who brags about huge gains over a short amount of time, well that seems to have jumped up and bit poor Isildur1 a little over the last few nights. Patrik Antonius is not the player you want to run into when it’s your time to give a little back. Not only did Antonius give him a smack on the nose, he popped Isildur1 for the biggest pot in online poker history.

In all the bouncing around I actually managed to miss everything go down but my good friends over at PokerNews.com caught it all. Without digging into the forensic details of the hand, I’ll just tell you that Antonius and Isildur1 had all the money in on the turn with a chop the most likely outcome. Antonius hit one of his ten outs on the river and dragged the new record pot of $878,958.50. That is not your standard home game pot. For the full details of the hand (until I can finally get the hand replayer pasted into this spot), you can check out the PokerNews.com writeup.

That wasn’t the end of the beatdown for Isildur1 as Brian Townsend and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies also stepped up over the last few days trying to take a piece out of his bankroll. Dwan must be licking his chops in London, wanting to get back online and reclaim what was once his. It will be interesting to see how long Isildur1 can hang at these levels, he’s been getting chippy in the chat the last few days and it may doing a number on him already. These tables have been running each evening and are definitely worth checking out for pure entertainment value.

~

In Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge news, Dwan is currently 1 for 2 in his battle. He is playing three 12 hours Heads Up matches against Marcello “Luckexpress” Marigliano, Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies and Sammy George at $500/$1000 PLO or NLHE. No player can leave the table before 500 hands or going busto. First up was Marigliano who finished with a narrow edge of just over $22,000 and then he defeated Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies by $68,000.

Playing at these stakes you could generally expect a much wider gap at the end of play but the challenge has been very even. Next up is World Class Smack Talker Sammy George, I feel pretty confident that this will not be a close affair no matter who wins in the end.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

Cash Game Explosion

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They haven’t played a hand since June. Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Patrik Antonius finally resumed action in their Heads Up durrrr Challenge battle with two sessions this week. Dwan at one point was ahead by over $1,000,000 and started these sessions with around a $700,000 cushion. After just a few thousand hands, Antonius grabbed the initiative and the lead in this epic battle.

For those who are unaware of the challenge or have forgotten during the long gaps in play, here’s the rundown.

With Dwan laying three-to-one odds for the “durrrr” Challenge, it’s no surprise that some of the world’s best poker players have already taken him up on his offer. Team Full Tilt’s Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius, along with high-stakes player David Benyamine, will be the first players to take on the young Internet pro.

The players who have accepted the “durrrr” Challenge must abide by the following conditions:

• The game type must be No-Limit Hold ‘em or Pot-Limit Omaha
• The stakes must be a minimum of $200/$400
• Once the stakes have been decided upon, they must stay the same for the entire challenge
• Players must reload if their stack falls below 75 big blinds at any time

The challenge started off like gang busters at the beginning but slowed down as the summer months arrived in the U.S. and stalled completely during the World Series of Poker. Even with the sudden burst of action, they are still less than 50% through the required 50,000 hands. The lead has changed several time of the 22,000 plus hands with Dwan having the biggest single lead. The last session of ver 1,200 involved 5 hands with pots over $150,000 with Antonius winning 4 of those. Those hands can be replayed, along with the 10 biggest hands throughout the challenge, can be replayed on the durrrr Challenge Stat Tracking page.

In other Tom Dwan news, he’s taking his challenges to a live venue this September in London.  Dwan is challenging players to 500 hands Heads Up, $500,000 buyin each, with blinds at $500/$1000.  Neither player can leave the table until 500 hands are complete or either have been busted to the felt.  So far the only taker is Brit player Sammy George.  I’ll keep my eye out to see how one of the top online players deals with this live challenge.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

The “durrrr” Challenge Continues

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Tom “durrrr” Dwan playing in the $10,000 Heads Up World Championship
Photo credit: Gene Bromberg

When Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Patrik Antonius began their epic heads up matches several months ago, one of the big questions floating around the internet was how many hands they would have to average so they would be done by the start of the 2009 World Series of Poker. There seemed to be no doubt they would want the challenge to be completed by then to concentrate on picking up WSOP cash and bracelets. Turned out that was needless questioning because neither pushed the action.

There have been few sitings of either player in the halls of the Rio this series. Dwan was seen playing in the $10,000 Heads Up World Championship but I believe it was his only event. Antonius has not been seen at all prompting speculation he has not been feeling well. His girlfriend Maya has played several events (as witnessed by you faithful blogger posting her pics) but he has been a no show.

It seems while I’ve been slaving away in the Amazon Room the two of them picked up steam and they played a monster session late in the week.  Dwan came away having erased his deficit and finished with a massive +$720,000 lead over Antonius.  They each sported huge stacks at the tables and 9 of the biggest 10 hands of the challenge were played in that stretch.

The Full Tilt durrrr Challenge tracking page has a hand replayer with those 10 hands, you can pull them up and see how the action went down.  The biggest pot in the challenge to date went to Dwan for over $477,000, he won with a flopped boat versus a turned smaller boat.

Action these days isn’t retricted solely to the live games and tournaments here at the Rio, the big games are still hot if you wish to follow online.  As alway, you can track the stats and hands via the durrrr Challenge page on FullTiltPoker.com.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

2009 World Series of Poker – No pause for “durrrr Challenge”

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Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Patrik Antonius continue their epic heads-up battle on Full Tilt Poker in the durrrr Challenge.  As of today they have played over 7,200 hands of the required 50,000.  That’s just short of 15% down before a winner is declared yet the numbers continue to switch between the two on a regular basis.  They have wagered over $41 Million while 4-tabling 200/400 Pot Limit Omaha yet there is only $30,000 seperating those two and neither has led by more than $250,000.

I would say this is a very even battle.

There is a really interesting interview up on the durrrr v Antonius stat tracking site with Patrik Antonius. It seems that Antonius is not completely pleased with the number of hands they’ve played and how often the two can get together on the tables. He really wants to have this settled before the World Series kicks off.

You can also checkout the hand replayer with the top 10 biggest pots. A few have been added and they are pretty sick.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

durrrr Challenge Update – Another Patrik Antonius Interview

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It’s been a crazy week in exhile where internet access has been sketchy, travel situations bordering on unbelievable, and my final destination which might prove harmful to my mental health.  But that doesn’t mean things have ground to a halt in the poker world.

Since my sudden disappearance fromn the online world we’ve seen Huck Seed win the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship (continuing the domination of Full Tilt pros in the event), the Battle of the Bloggers 4 rolls along like a beast,  Big Money Sunday continues to draw huge numbers for the guarantee events and the Full Tilt Poker Academy is really taking off.

Then there is the continuing epic battle between Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Patrik Antonius in the durrrr Challenge.  With some other monster stakes games going on recently, their number of HU hands hasn’t been huge but they are nearly 10% into the required 50,000 hands.  Dwan currently leads Antonius by over $140,000 but that can change quickly at these stakes.

As always, the best source for keep up to date on the action is the durrrr Challenge Stats Tracker page.  The data is pulled directly from the game servers with only a few minutes delay.  The hand replayer is also on the page showing the top 10 biggest hands of the Challenge so far.  They’ve also added a feature, you can listen to interviews with Antonius about the challenge and the first interview is now up.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

durrrr Challenge update and Patrik Antonius interview

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The durrrr Challenge continues to run on Full Tilt between Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Patrik Antonius.  When they kick off their 4 tables of Pot Limit Omaha, word spreads quickly and the railbirds come out to watch.  They are just shy of 4,000 hands in their Heads Up battle with Dwan holding close to a $150,000 lead.  But there is a long way to go and the lead swings between the two.

Full Tilt has put together a page which can help you track the progress of the challenge.  The durrrr vs Antonius stats tracker is the only resource that is pulling data directly from the game in real time. There is about a minute lag between the time a hand is complete and the page is updated.  The data and graphing are as accurate as you can find on the internet and certainly quicker.  No other website has this capability.

You can also use this page to check if they have resumed playing more of the required 50,000 hands.  The box in the top right corner will tell you if they are sitting down at the “durrrr Challenge” tables set up specifically for these two players.  If they are playing, simply click the link.  It will fire up your FTP software and take you directly to the tables.

Feel free to join along the rail and watch two of the top players in the world battle against each other.

Post from: Poker From The Rail

durrrr Challenge Stats Tracker

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• FTOPS IX: that’s right baby, FTOPS is back! 25 events, more than $15 million guaranteed – that pretty much says it all. If you can’t get excited about this then you really need to get your head checked. This truly is online donkament play at its finest. The action kicks off on August 6^th, please don’t miss out.
• Big Money Sundays: more awesome donkament action at Full Tilt Poker. There’s over $1 million in prize money up for grabs every Sunday with the Sunday Brawl, $750K Guarantee and Sunday Mulligan. This Sunday the $750K gets replaced with the monthly $1 Million Guarantee, so there’s even more prize money to be had.
• Happy Hour: earn twice the Full Tilt Points simply by playing in your favorite games. Whenever you see the smiley face in the game lobby that means Happy Hour is on. Come on people, who doesn’t love to get free stuff just for doing the same old thing? Use those extra points to get great gear from the Full Tilt Store. Doggy tank-top anyone?
• The Iron Man Challenge: my all time favorite promotion. It’s a bit on the complicated side, so let me summarize for you – the more you play, the more you get. Earn Iron Man Medals to use in the Iron Man Store, get entry to Freerolls and the chance to win up to $100K. This one is for players who really want to commit themselves to the game, and it’s really a great reward for showing that dedication.

We’ve also got a few great promos coming up that haven’t been officially announced as of yet, but let me give you a quick sneak peak. For all you SNG fiends out there, another round of Sit & Go Madness is coming up very soon, so stay tuned for all the details on that one. And for all the Patrik Antonius fans out there, we have a couple of great promos in the works involving Team Full Tilt’s newest member. Details on all of our new promotions will be coming soon.

That’s it for now folks. A hearty thanks goes out to all the Tilters out there who help make this the best place to play online poker. Have a great weekend pokerland…

Post from: Poker From The Rail

FTOPS and More

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Through 26 events at this year’s World Series of Poker, our 5,000 Full Tilt Poker pros have won seven brand new shiny gold bracelets, 27 of our pros have made final tables, and all together our pros have earned more than $6 million in prize money. Yes, its official, Full Tilt Poker rules the world! And I’m not getting paid to say that (well, actually I am, but my pay has been downgraded from the Peso to the Thai Baht, so I’ve got that going for me).

I’m predicting right now that by the end of the Series we’ll have won 73 bracelets, had at least 3,000 of our pros make final tables, and earned at least $50 million in prize money (which, non-coincidentally, is about 1.6 billion Thai Baht − or about enough money to buy a condo in North Hollywood). One more prediction: by the end of the Series, Full Tilt Poker will be home to at least 10,000 of the world’s finest poker players. That’s right, you heard it here first.

Congratulations on winning a bracelet, next stop Disneyland?

A hearty round of congrats are in order for three of our pros from this past weekend, as Jens Voertmann, Max Pescatori and Kenny Tran all won themselves one of those shiny bracelet thingies. Hooray for everyone!

Jens won his first bracelet in Event #22, the $3K HORSE donkament. Voertmann managed to fight his way through a star-studded final table, including Team Full Tilter Jen Harman and Full Tilt Poker pro Steve Zolotow, and take home nearly $300K for his first-place finish. Max “The Italian Pirate” Pescatori won his second career bracelet by besting a field of 457 players in Event #24, the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold ‘em/Omaha tourney. This was another tough final table which included Allen “Clever Piggy” Cunningham, but it was “The Italian Pirate” for the win and just under $250K in prize money. Last but most certainly not least, we had Kenny “The Man” Tran taking down Event #25, the $10K No-Limit Hold ‘em Heads-Up Championship. Tran took down eight consecutive heads-up matches to claim the top prize of just over $539K, besting Alec Torelli in the final match for his first ever bracelet.

Just a quick round-up of other Tilt related happenings:

Full Tilt Poker awarded 150 seats to this year’s Main Event yesterday − hooray for us! If you still dream of hitting the big time and making your way to the Big Dance, we’re running our final WSOP qualifiers over the next week or so – get all the details here.

The MSOP is still running and I’m still losing all of my money chasing that oh-so elusive winner’s watch. My bankroll is so decimated at this point that I have to satellite into even the smaller buy-in events. The lesson here is that playing a large donkament while shotgunning beer after beer might not be the best idea…

And finally, for those of you who haven’t heard yet, newly minted Team Full Tilter and uber-hunk Patrik Antonius has issued a challenge to all the high-stakes online players out there that he’s ready to start kicking ass and taking names. So if you’re feeling frisky and would like to donate some money to the Antonius fund, he’s waiting for you on the site even as we speak.

Hopefully Big Donkey will be back next week to bring you up to speed on all things Tilt (and save me from this horrible indignity). If not, don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Post from: Poker From The Rail

The Week at FTP: FTP Rules the World!

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Nenad Medic, really? I mean, who the hell is this guy?

I knew a couple of questions like this would be popping into the old inbox as soon as I heard the news of Medic’s astounding victory. Why do I say this was an astounding victory? Well, that final table was absolutely stacked with talent (including our new man Antonius) and he was heads up versus Andy Bloch, a favorite of ours here at the office and a man long overdue to win his first bracelet. But Medic did have more than a 2-1 chip lead entering heads-up play, so you can’t be too surprised that he came through for the victory.

At any rate, according to the bio we have on Full Tilt Poker, Medic is a really tall (6’5”) Serb who grew up in Canada wanting to be a basketball player. Talk about being really mixed up; I mean, you can be a Serb and play basketball (thank you Vlade Divac) or you can be a Canadian and play basketball (thank you Steve Nash), but there’s no way you can be a Serb who grew up in Canada AND play basketball. Inconceivable!

Basketball ambitions aside (Medic obviously never made it to the NBA), Nenad has turned himself into quite a formidable poker player. Though mainly a cash game specialist, Medic already had a WPT title under his belt (the 2006 WPT Championship at Foxwoods), so adding this WSOP bracelet really solidifies him as a solid player. So yes, I guess that means no more Nenad Medic jokes from now on. This is truly a sad day for us all…

Well done on the Patrik Antonius signing. Does this mean that FTP is back to signing real pros only or will you soon return to signing every flavor of the month?

Hey, be nice now. I know we’ve signed a lot of pros over the past few months, but almost all of them have been legitimate pros (sorry Bruce Buffer, you’re not included on this list). It’s possible we might have gone a little overboard signing German pros recently, but Germany is fast becoming a huge poker country and most of those players are pretty solid (plus Hans Martin Vogl is da bomb yo, at least imo).

But yeah, the Antonius signing is pretty huge for us. It’s actually been worth it just to see the perpetual stream of drool running down The All-In-Uit’s chin as she dreams of getting to interview Patrik at some point in time. Other than that, Antonius is obviously one of the top players in the world and a god to all the 2+2ers out there. Actually, the reverence that Antonius evokes on 2+2 is downright frightening at times. Come back to the real world people, it’s not as scary as you think…

I see that Phil Ivey is leading Event #5 at the WSOP, which is a rebuy event. Any advice you can give on playing a rebuy tourney?

Yeah, I have some advice: don’t play them. I mean, if you want to participate in the most donk-tastic hour of poker in your life, by all means go ahead. But those rebuy periods tend to be unbearably painful for me most of the time. Sure, it can be fun to basically do flips for an hour or so, but your pockets have to be pretty deep to do that. Plus, once you’re done with the rebuy and add-on period, most of the chip stacks are so deep that it takes forever for the blinds to catch up. Some might call that good structure; I call it a boring day at the poker table. Give me a turbo tourney over a rebuy tourney any day of the week.

With that said, if you really want to go through the pain of a rebuy tourney, make sure that you have a strategy going in ahead of time. Other than the initial rebuy that you can make right away to double your stack and the add-on you know you’ll take, plan out how many rebuys you can afford to make. If you can only afford three rebuys on your bankroll, then just stick to three. If your luck runs out and you can’t afford to rebuy again, please do the smart thing and call it a day.

You also have to remember to loosen up quite a bit during the rebuy period. The goal in any tournament is to accumulate as many chips as possible, but this is even more important in a rebuy tourney. If you can’t gather a good pile of chips by the end of the rebuy period, you’re going to be in trouble very soon. After the rebuy period has ended, you’re back to standard tourney style, just with a lot of extra chips in play.

One amusing anecdote I’ve heard through the grapevine (which means there’s a 99% chance that it’s actually not true) about Ivey at Event #5: the man sat down with $100K in casino chips ready to use as his rebuys. That’s right, Phil Ivey was prepared to rebuy 100 times in this tourney (rebuys were running at $1K a pop). If that’s not baller, I don’t know what is. And that’s why Phil Ivey is Phil Fracken’ Ivey. Until next week…

Post from: Poker From The Rail

Reader Mail: Lord, Thy Name Be Antonius

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