The FTOPS Main Event concluded early this morning, finishing off yet another highly successful series of events for one of the world’s biggest poker sites. This year 27 events tested some of the best tournament players in the world as more than $17,000,000 in Guaranteed prize money was up for grabs. The Main Event alone had a $2,500,000 Guarantee which is huge for a $500+$35 buy-in event. The prize pool eventually swelled to $2,822,500 as 5,645 players entered the day’s biggest event.
The Main Event was hosted by FullTilt professional and world-class poker player Allen Cunningham. Cunningham is highly respected in the poker community not only for his cash game skills, but also for his five WSOP bracelets. He has won bracelets in four different disciplines in including Seven-Card Stud (2001), Deuce-to-Seven Draw (2002), No Limit Hold’em (2005, 2006), and Pot-Limit Hold’em (2007). He currently sits at number 8 on the all-time tournament earning list at $10,398,118. Allen is also a feared cash game player who has made quite a splash in recent seasons on FullTilt’s live Million Dollar Cash Game.
Joining Cunningham were more than 70 other FullTilt sponsored professionals included a few huge names in live and online poker. Patrik Antonius, part-owner of FullTilt and widely considered one the of top-5 Pot-Limit Omaha players in the world was on hand and narrowly missed out on the money in 946th place. Finishing just after Antonius in 926th place was former WSOP Main Event Champion (and recently reinstated FullTilt Pro) Carlos Mortensen. Mortensen was not the only Main Event champion as Huck Seed was also on hand but took a quick exit in 5039th place. Other big names from the live poker scene who played were Erick Lindgren, Gavin Smith, Lee Watkinson, and Peter “Nordberg” Feldman.
These great live pros were joined by a slew of online professionals including Mike “Schneids” Schneider who finished inside the top-100 in 98th place. Schneids is one of the biggest Limit Hold’em winners in online poker history, having beat the highest of stakes for millions of dollars over the past five years. Another player with a Limit Hold’em background, Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko, joined in on the fun but barely could get going before he busted in 4912th place. Other big names in online poker on hand were Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby, Eric Liu, and Mike “Timex” McDonald. The best finish out of all the professionals came from Michael Tureniec who took 33rd place and $5,645.
Unfortunately there is not a whole lot to say about the final table. In fact, there’s practically nothing. After “trojancountry” was busted in 9th place and “vice67” fell in 8th, the remaining seven players decided to chop the remaining $1,500,000 left in the prize pool. This process, called “chip-chopping” leaves each player with a certain dollar amount based on their chip count. Despite finishing in 3rd place in the final standings, “dfhjik” was actually the chip-leader when the chop was made which left him with the biggest piece of the prize pool, $261,077.25. Because of this he is truly the biggest winner while the person walking away with the FTOPS Gold Jersey avatar, “JackQKA”, took home nearly $25,000 less than the actual champion.
Congratulations goes to dfhjik, JackQKA, and all 720 players who made the money in the FTOPS XV Main Event
FullTilt FTOPS XV Main Event $2.5M Guaranteed
5,645 Entrants; $2,822,500 prize pool
*7-way chip-chop
1. JackQKA $237,643.69
2. PageUpV $239,484.60
3. dfhjik $261,077.25
4. ReloadPlz $185,530.64
5. SurferKel $186,530.64
6. TheJunkie $194,050.34
7. The Fluke1200 $172,591.02
8. vice67 $42,337.50
9. trojancountry $29,636.25