Countless quality players fall at the final hurdle in big tournaments, failing to adjust their 꽁머니 환전 game for heads up and missing out on the top spot. Those players would not have made it past the first round in FTOPS X Event #21, the $500 + $35 No Limit Hold ‘em Heads Up tournament. Eight hundred ninety-seven players engaged in tense one-on-one battles for over 13 hours, until a champion was eventually crowned.
Coming in at $500k, this was one of the larger guaranteed prize pools, meaning that, unfortunately for the players, buy-ins failed to top the guarantee. It was just a round $500k on offer to those who managed to cash. However, this still ensured a hefty top-prize of $87,000.
The event was hosted by veteran grinder Huck Seed, best known for winning the 1996 WSOP main event, as well as his reserved table image. At 6 feet 7 inches tall, his sheer presence at the table is contrasted by his laconic attitude and considered play. His most ignominious moment came at the hands of poker-brat Phil Hellmuth, who once won a $50,000 bet against Huck. Hellmuth bet that Huck wouldn’t be able to stand in ocean water, up to his shoulders, for 18 hours. Although, with 4 bracelets and two main event final tables to his name, Huck is assured he will be remembered for his poker prowess rather than his prop-bet leaks.
Twenty of the Full Tilts finest poker pros were on hand to test their heads up skills, but in the end only one of their numbers would make it into the money. Aaron Bartley, recording his fifth cash of the series, is easily leading the pros on the FTOPS X leaderboard. His 29th place finish in event #21 will be added to the four cashes he recorded in the first five events. Known as “GambleAB” online, he is one of the most feared online players in the world, and his top drawer performance in this year’s FTOPS will come as no surprise to those who have played against him.
One hundred twenty-seven other players cashed, with the final heads up battle taking place between DuckU and mendieta19. When all was said and done it was DuckU who proved himself to be one of the finest shorthanded players around. He collected the $87,000 first prize for his troubles.
The biggest buy-in FTOPS tourney took place over the past two days on Full Tilt. Event #22 was a $5200, $2,000,000 Guaranteed 6-max event hosted by Full Tilt Pro and WSOP ME Final Table participant Craig Marquis. An event with such a large buy-in was sure to only attract the biggest names in online and live poker, and this tournament certainly did not disappoint. Full Tilt brought a strong contingent of their own pros, including recent bracelet winner Erick Lindgren, high-stakes Pro Gus Hansen, Limit phenom Matt “HossTBF” Hawrilenko, WSOP Runner- UP Paul Wasicka, and online Pro Taylor “Green Plastic” Caby. There were also many online MTT Pros playing including top-ranked players such as “AJKHoosier1″, “amak316″, “Annette_15″, and FTR’s very own, “busto_soon”.
The deep-stacked tournament led to a lot of post-flop play not normally seen in online MTTs. Coming into the final table players still had, on average, 75BBs to play with. At 5000/10000 blinds, the starting stacks at the Final Table were:
Seat 1: KaKeTKa (832,144)
Seat 2: PureCash25 (565,184)
Seat 3: Buster Love (183,867)
Seat 4: dpowell (344,096)
Seat 5: amak316 (746,125)
Seat 6: NEONPILS99 (328,584)
“Buster Love” is supposedly the one and only Mark Seif, a live pro who has fallen under fire recently for his affiliation with Absolute Poker during their SuperUser scandals. Previously mentioned Amit “amak316″ Makhija is a top-rated internet pro who has made a WPT Final Table. All six players would be battling it out for first place, the notorious FTOPS Jersey Avatar, and $550,000 in first-place money. First to go was “dpowell” when his pocket fives were no match for Seif’s pocket sixes:
