Saturday was a busy day at FTOPS XVI. Event 5 of the FTOPS was a $100 No Limit Holdem rebuy tournament. A total of 1,936 players registered for the tournament. There was a guarantee of $600,000 but the tourney fell $8,800 short of the guarantee. The top winner of Event 5 of this season’s FTOPS XVI took home more than $123,000.
The final table broke down as follows:
Seat 1 – SBRounder (856,174)
Sear 2 – SPQR8 (188,356)
Seat 3 – TBONE4LIFE87 (3,257,785)
Seat 4 – bigramie (1,186,942)
Seat 5 – eliterush (1,432,784)
Seat 6 – Shyeee (657,834)
Seat 7 – zizou444 (1,007,843)
Seat 8 – kingpin023 (344,539)
Seat 9 – apestyles (574,743)
The final table began with the blinds at 14,000/28,000 and the antes at 3,500. With blinds this low and stacks this large, there was plenty of tournament left to be played.
Shyeee was the first player to be knocked out when eliterush shoved all-in with 4c3h in the small blind against Shyeee. Shyeee called with Ad2s and was well ahead. Unfortunately for Shyeee, eliterush hit a 3s on the turn and paired his three. The river was a blank and eliterush won the hand.
A few hands later, SPQR8 opened with his 5c5s. TBONE4LIFE87 reraised in the cutoff with KcKd. All folded but SPQR8 who shoved his pocket fives. TBONE4LIFE87 called quickly with his cowboys and eliminated SPQR8 in eight place.
Eliterush was able to get lucky in the small blind once again to knock out his next victim. In the small blind, eliterush shoved 8c6s and the big blind, zizou444, called with AcQh. Eliterush sucked out once again and zizou444 left the tournament in seventh place.
Two other players were knocked out shortly after the last hand. Kingpin23 was knocked out in sixth when his pocket fours were up against TBONE4LIFE87’s pocket jacks and apestyles’ pocket queens preflop. Apestyles more than doubled up and kingpin23 was gone. Soon after this, SBRounder was caught all-in preflop with As7s against bigramie’s pocket eight. Bigramie’s eights held and SBRounder was knocked out in fifth place.
TBONE4LIFE87 was the next to go when apestyles shoved his 7d5d in the small blind. TBONE4LIFE87 called with AhQc with only 680,000 chips left. The underdog prevailed again as apestyles rivered a flush on the ThTd4d8hKd board. TBONE4LIFE87 was knocked out in fourth place and three players were left with approximately even stacks.
Eliterush quickly became the shortstack with approximately 1.3 million chips. He was the next to be knocked out when apestyles minraised the button, eliterush called out of the big blind, and the flop came Jd9c2h. Eliterush checked, apestyles bet 195,000 chips, and eliterush called. After the 3c turn hit, eliterush check-raised all-in. Apestyles called with JcTc while eliterush had Qd9d. The river was a blank and eliterush was knocked out in third place at the hands of apestyles.
Apestyles was pulling away during heads-up play. Soon, he knocked out bigramie when he minraised on the button and was three-bet to 400,000 by bigramie. Apestyles four-bet and made it one million. Bigramie called and both players saw the Jd6c2c flop. Bigramie check-raised apestyles’ 900,000 bet to three million chips and was all-in. Apestyles called with AhQd while bigramie was ahead with midpair with his 7d6h. The 8s turn helped nobody but the As river gave apestyles the tournament, the $123,600 first prize, and his first golden jersey.