MiniFTOPS XIX featured its largest buy-in event on Saturday: the two-day $1,000+$60 No Limit Holdem Heads-Up tournament. Full Tilt kept the guarantee for this event quite low at $100,000 probably because it is a new event and they had no idea what to expect. An impressive 381 people paid the buy-in, though, creating a $381,000 prize pool with $93,345 for 1st place.
The hostess of the event was Lacey Jones, the official WSOP hostess and hostess for the Doubles Poker Championship on TV. Jones also works as a fashion model and is, of course, a professional poker player. She learned to play poker while she was going to college and accepted an invitation from ESPN to compete in a tournament as a model. Everyone was shocked when she went deep in the event, and this launched her career as a poker player.
While Event 19 was scheduled for two days, only four players actually made it to day two. Ferrari55358 was scheduled to play Mement_mori, and actionjunky32 was scheduled to play highlandfox.
If you are a fan of online poker, you will definitely be familiar with Mement_mori, also known as Mickey Peterson. He is currently ranked 44th on the PocketFives leaderboard, and he is an instructor for Cardrunners. To say that his online tournament results are outstanding would be an understatement. His cashes online total over $3.6 million, with his largest cash coming in a PokerStars SCOOP event for $161k. He has done just fine in live events, as well. His largest live cash would be his 4th place finish in April 2010 in the EPT Grand Final for almost $98k.
Highlandfox is also well known in the online poker community. Known as Timothy Finne offline, he is currently ranked 535th on PocketFives and has $1.6 million in career online cashes. His largest online cash has come on PokerStars in the Sunday 500 for $94k. He has quite a few live cashes on his poker resume, as well, including two 6-figure WSOP cashes. The first came back in 2009 for $126k in the $3k HORSE event. The second was just last year in a $2.5k Limit/No Limit Holdem event for $110k.
While actionjunky32 is not as high profile as either Mement_mori or highlandfox, he has also had an incredible amount of success with online poker. He is currently ranked 555th on PocketFives and currently has $755k in career winnings, all on Full Tilt Poker. His largest cash came around a year ago for almost $46k in the $750k guaranteed. It seems like March is a good month for him!
Of the four finalists, we know the least about Ferrari55358. Ferrari55358 does not have an account on PocketFives, and to date has played just over 100 tournaments on Full Tilt. Before this heads-up event, he had no other significant cashes under this screen name at all!
You will soon find out that experience and previous success does not always dictate a tournament’s outcome. Ferrari55358 managed to beat the experienced Mement_mori in their match, a classic case of the underdog overcoming the odds and winning in the end. On paper the match between actionjunky32 and highlandfox could have gone either way, and it was highlandfox emerging victorious when it was all said and done.
This set up a final match between highlandfox and Ferrari5535. The two players decided to make a deal for the remaining prize pool. Originally 1st place was $93k and 2nd place was $53k, but they made a deal for $66k each and played for the remaining $14.6k.
Once again Ferrari55358 had to be the underdog, and once again he overcame the odds to win the match! The final hand was quite epic: Ferrari5535 raised AJss and called highlandfox’s 3-bet with K4ss. The flop came down 4d3s2d, giving Ferrari5535 a gutshot with overs and highlandfox a pair with an over. The turn came Ts, giving both of them flush draws! It is no surprise that all the money went in at this point. The river came a Jd, giving Ferrari5535 top pair and the MiniFTOPS title.
Congratulations to everyone that cashed Event 19! Please see below for the top 4 cashes and be sure to come back to FTR for more MiniFTOPS coverage.
1 – Ferrari55358 – $80,685.00
2 – highlandfox – $66,000.00
3 – actionjunky32 – $27,622.50
4 – Mement_mori – $27,622.50