MiniFTOPS XVII is a week old today and to celebrate it’s hosting a bunch of online poker tournaments. The climactic event of the first seven days was Event #18, a straightforward No Limit Hold’em Turbo contest. Full Tilt is laying on a whole variety of different formats and styles for the MiniFTOPS, including the unfailingly popular Rush Poker. If Event #18 is anything to go by, the vanilla tournaments may be suffering by comparison. The 6,875 $20 buy-ins failed to match the $150,000 guarantee. This was great news for all those those players who did enter, providing a slice of added value to each and every buy-in.
The host for Event #18 was a understated gentleman by the name of Alfredo Leonidas. The Filipino pro better known as Toto is famous for his laconic table presence and prodigious talent. There’s no better certificate of poker authenticity than a WSOP bracelet and Toto won his very own in the 2003 $1.5k 7-Card Stud event. Among his other tournament successes are a victory in the 2003 U.S. Poker Championship and 3rd place finish in the 2005 Bay 101 Shooting Star.
Toto didn’t manage to break into the 900 paid places in Event #18, but a handful of his Team Full Tilt compatriots did puncture the bubble. Aaron Bartley (267th), Dave Colclough (292nd), Joseph Cheong (146th), and Pas Lefrancois (323rd) all bagged a little cash. Among the Red Pros who didn’t see any return on their $20 were Jon Turner, Kelly Kim, Raul Oliveira, and Scott Fischman.
The action in Event #18 was fast and furious, with the whole tournament coming to a close in just under 4 hours. The final tablers also seemed keen to bring proceedings to a speedy conclusion, chopping the prize money four ways. That left a little cash, some exclusive Full Tilt merch, and a whole heap of pride left to play for. Pal73 made out best from the deal, exiting in 4th place, just before omGikisseDagirL bowed out. That left the relatively unknown cusetown315 to compete against internet expert p00cket00. The Brampton, Ontario native – better known as Sebastian Sikarski – has lifetime online winnings of almost $2 million, but couldn’t make his experience tell on the night. When the dust had settled, cusetown315 was crowed the MiniFTOPS Event #18 champion.
Final table payouts:
1st: cusetown315 ($20,126.83)
2nd: p00cket00 ($14,752.37)
3rd: omGikisseDagirL ($13,915.90)
4th: Pal73 ($14,729.90)
5th: Ronnie Ruthless ($6,750)
6th: elgoliardo ($4,800)
7th: pigin1984 ($3,195)
8th: jeyjey76 ($2,200)
9th: hazarrrd1 ($1,560)