Another day gone by, and another FTOPS Event in the books! Today we had the pleasure of witnessing the action of FTOPS XV, Event #7: $100+$9 R/A. Tonight’s event was hosted by none other than Dag Martin Mikkelsen, one of the most feared tourney players in the game today. Dag is probably best remembered for his play during the 2007 WSOP, the one that Jerry Yang won. He came in 43nd place taking home about $142,000, which is incidentally the largest sum ever won by a Norwegian in the WSOP. Among numerous other excellent tournament performances, Dag also had a strong finish in the 2009 EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo, in which he got eliminated in 4th place.
For today’s tournament, a total of 2,099 hopefuls showed up, ballooning the prize pool to a total of $645,500! Notable participants were Alan Boston, caio Pimenta, Jeff Madsen, Gary Jones, Isaac Baron, Lee Watkinson and Soren Kongsgaard. Tons of money up for grabbing in this one, so read on to know how it went down!
9th
We pick up the action on the onset of the Final Table Bubble. At this point, just 8 remained between any given player and the prize. The first one to go down at the final table was bdubs3737.
Just like that, a pre-flop allin and a routine bad beat sent bdubs3737 home in 8th place, with $7,746 that can be used to buy a lot of tissues to wipe the tears. Congrats though. 😉
8th
As the blinds were creeping up, mordovotische was looking for a good spot to commit his chips. He picked up 88 UTG, and figured that would be as good a spot as any with about 11 BB left, translating to an M of about 2.5. Diegohada was in a similar situation too, with almost the exact amount of chips, and similar in preflop hand strength too, with his AQo. The rest of the hand played itself in a fairly straightforward fashion; they flipped it up for stacks, everyone folded, and…
Diegohada won the flip, sending mordovotische almost to the rail. Chip leader cdbr3799 finished the job though, ironically with pocket 8s.
And morodvorotische was eliminated in 8th place, taking home $10,328 for his efforts. Not bad at all, and congrats!
7th
The next elimination left us waiting for it to make its appearance. All the players were playing some excellent poker, and everybody was hanging on to whatever they could, as cdbr3799 was cruising with 3x as many chips as his nearest competitor. And then finally, in what became a very bloody blind battle, bankrollme87 and Volody512345 committed all their chips preflop. Volody512345 had a slight chip advantage over his opponent, and a slightly better hand, and both of these paid off greatly as you can see next:
bankrollme87’s hand was unimproved when all the cards hit the table, sending him home in 7th place, $14,846.50 richer. I don’t think he would need to ask people to bankroll him anymore, at least not in the near future! Congrats! 😉
6th
Despite starting the final table in last place, Jabrones showed some definite cojones and outlasted many who had many more chips than him. Smelling a late steal by the chipleader cdbr3737 who minraised to open the pot, he would trust his read and shove. I was surprised when cdbr3737 called too as I too was sure it was a steal, but hey, it seems like we both got deceived.
And the pocket 8’s did some more damage tonight, sending Jabrones and his unimproved ATs home in 6th place, $21,947 richer. Not bad at all! Congrats!
5th
Another string of boring-to-outsiders-but-very-interesting-pokerwise happened, leading to the 5th place bustout:
JMaster130, sitting on the D in an unopened pot, raised to about 126K chips. Volody512345, who covers him by about 5 blinds and positioned in the SB, re-raised to about 400K+ chips. Jmaster130 pondered for a long time, and then called. The pot on the flop was just about 1M chips, and the effective stacks left to bet were about 1.1M, with JMaster130 being at risk. The flop came an unassuming 6h2d4h. Volody512345 open-shoved, and was insta-called by Jmaster130. Can you guess their hands? Yep, indeed: AA vs. KK.
JMaster130’s crafty slowplay left Volody512345 crippled, but it’s arguable whether the shoves would not have happened preflop anyway. A few hands went by, with JMaster130 still not done with Volody512345. He then open-shoved an unopened pot while holding the SB into Volody512345. Volody512345 correctly put his opponent on a range wider than a barn door, and called him with his above average hand. Pictures would tell this story’s conclusion better than words…
And just like that, Volody512345 was sent home in 5th place, earning $33,566 for his efforts. Let me be the first to say: LOLDONKAMENTS! Oh and congrats on a good run!
Now it was getting serious, as we are approaching $50K territory. With that kind of money, you could buy a nice sports coupe. Or half-stack on Durrrr-stakes.
4th
Diegohada basically folded his way to get this far. Obviously this is very valid strategy, as avoiding minefields is a crucial component to Harrington-esque tournament poker, and Diegohada has shown quite a mastery of this art. His good run of avoidance would run out however, as he got too short stacked to keep maneuvering. Greenguard13 took care of the formalities, with a standard preflop all-in, BvB, yada yada you know how it goes:
And Diegohada was sent home in 4th place, with a well deserved $47,767 in his pockets. Congrats!
3rd
GreenGuard13 was flying high after the last elimination, and showed us some rather solid poker play, and eventually clawed his way to 2nd in chips for the tourney. He made one slight misstep though: took button blind stealing too far. His standard 3xbb D raise met resistance, and he decided to call with his decidedly weaksauce hand.
After this hand, which left GreenGuard13 a bit crippled, it would not take long for the job to be finished, this time courtesy of cdbr3799.
GreenGuard13 played an excellent tournament, and for making it this far he took home $63,259. Congratulations!
HU
We were down to just two players then, from the 2000+ who played in this tourney. The whole final table lasted just about one-and-a-half hours, but the HU phase lasted just 6 minutes. cdbr3799 started out things with a 3:1 chip advantage over JMaster130. This chip advantage eventually grew up to a 6:1, which proved too much for poor JMaster130. The final hand went down as follows: standard pre-flop shove, call, and the obligatory suckout for the win.
JMaster130 takes home $85,206 for his runner-up finish tonight, while cdbr3799 dominated the final table from start to finish on his route to a win, an FTOPS yellow jersey, and most importantly, $131,649.73 in cold hard cash as rewards for his efforts tonight. Congratulations everyone who participated, and remember: just because you did not meet Lady Victory today, does not mean that you won’t tomorrow. So try again in the next event!