One of the more intriguing FullTilt Online Poker Series XVII events is in the books! Event #24, the $200+$16 NL “Cash-Out” tournament attracted 1,248 players Thursday afternoon. The cash-out events are a much different structure than standard poker tournament and includes two separate prize pools instead of just one. The main prize pool is paid out just like a normal poker tournament but the additional “Cashout Pool” holds cash for those not willing to bust in the event. Half of the entry fees go to each pool which in this case was not enough to cover the $150,000 guarantee. Therefore the Main prize pool had $150k and the cash out pool only had $124,800.
The tournament was hosted by one of the most famous figures in poker history. Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, part-owner of FullTilt and former World Series of Poker Main Event Champion took the honors Thursday. Nicknamed “Jesus” because of his long hair, Ferguson is a regular on high-stakes cash games such as Poker After Dark, High Stakes Poker, and the Million Dollar Cash Game. All of that experience failed to materialize yesterday as Ferguson busted in the middle of the pack in 596th place. Ferguson was joined by 17 other FullTilt “red pros” including the always entertaining Gavin Smith, Bobby’s Room regular Eli Elezra, and two-time WSOP bracelet winner David “The Dragon” Pham.
For those wondering how the cash out pool works you are not alone. In fact it seems numerous players at the final table were not exactly aware of this either. FullTilt goes in-depth on their website explaining these tournaments “give players the option of cashing out some or all of their chips before the tournament has ended.” As poker players we have surely heard something like this from naive friends or family watching the World Series on TV: “why don’t they just cash out their chips and leave”. Before cashout tournaments this was not possible. Now, players can receive whatever percentage of chips in play they own in cashout value. For example, in a tournament with 1,500 starting chips players could immediately cashout for half of their initial buy-in. Take a $20+$2 event, $10 goes to the prize pool, another $10 to the cashout pool, and the $2 fee to FullTilt. At this point in time players could take what amounts to a $12 loss and cashout, which clearly is not a profitable move. What makes things interesting is later in the game trying to figure out the opportune time to cash your chips in or to continue to battle for the final table and a bigger piece of the prize pool.
This is where the confusion came in late Thursday evening. A good portion of players reaching the final table were surprised to find out the cashout pool is automatically awarded once the last 9 players are set. All that was left to play for was the actual prize pool. The final table had some solid players including a FullTilt sponsored professional “Eddy Scharf” who was the short-stack and first to bust as well as famous poker professional Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen. Here were the final table chip counts:
CigarroBR: t397,947
Vestvik7: t651,800
458854: t320,294
PattyyBlouin: t517,951
Arnz18: t1,304,530
CeJeH: t451,895
chapmoney: t1,034,895
Eddy Scharf: t271,605
THAY3R: t37,3598
The title, and about $11,000 in difference, came down to chapmoney and Vestvik7 after Final table chip-leader “Arnz18” busted in third place for $12,375. The match lasted under 20 hands as chapmoney called a flop raise and then was fortunate enough to hit 3-of-a-kind on the turn and get his money in way ahead:
With that suck-out the tournament was over and while it is impossible to know exactly who made how much there were at least 126 players paid in Event #24. Congratulations goes to all who cashed in (and out) in FTOPS XVII Event #24!!
FTOPS Event #24 $150k Guaranteed Cashout
1,248 Entrants; $274,800 prize pool
1. chapmoney $28,800
2. Vestvik7 $17,850
3. Arnz18 $12,375
4. PattyyBlouin $9,525
5. CigarroBR $7,275
6. 458854 $5,325
7. THAY3R $3,900
8. CeJeH $3,150
9. Eddy Scharf $2,400