With FTOPS XIV winding down, 9,832 players took part in $120+$9 No Limit Hold ‘Em Knockout event. Hosted by the 2009 World Series of Poker sixth-place finisher, Steven Begleiter, the tournament had a prize pool of $983,200 with its first-place finisher winning over $100,000.
The final table was as follows:
Seat 1 – Dinhjo (6,220,000)
Seat 2 – BikStik8585 (7,276,474)
Seat 3 – SNG Ninja (8,201,863)
Seat 4 – Al-Extrem1 (1,458,822)
Seat 5 – boltsva (1,401,536)
Seat 6 – Alcatrez27278 (5,388,636)
Seat 7 – little chief17 (12,996,445)
Seat 8 – bethwolf22 (2,402,830)
Seat 9 – cristinalindley (3,813,394)
With the blinds at 100,000/200,000 and an ante of 25,000, Al-Extrem1 only had six big blinds left. Facing a raise from little chief17, Al-Extrem1 reraised all-in with pocket aces. Little chief17 made the call with KdJs. The QdQcJc gave little chief17’s a pair of jacks with the Jh coming on a later street to complete little chief17’s suckout and knock Al-Extrem1 out of the tournament in ninth place.
Boltsva was next to be knocked out by little chief17. From early position, little chief17 raised and was called by boltsva in the big blind. The flop came out a 9h4s2c. Boltsva check-raised all-in and little chief17 called. Boltsva held 6h6s but little chief was ahead with Ac9s for top pair, top kicker. Neither the turn nor the river helped boltsva and he was gone in eighth place. In the very next hand, BikStik8585’s Ad7s was beaten by Alcatraz2278’s 5h5s on a 7d5c3dJc3c board and was sent home in seventh place.
Tournament play continued quite normally until it was down to the final three. SNG Ninja, cristinalindley, and little chief17 made a deal that granted a little more than $100,000 to little chief17 and cristinalindley with a bit over $95,000 going to SNG Ninja. Soon after, the chips went in preflop in a hand between SNG Ninja and little chief17. SNG Ninja’s Kh8s was drawing thin against little chief17’s pocket queens. The board was no help to SNG Ninja and he was knocked out in third place.
Heads-up play began with little chief17 having more than a 2-1 chip advantage over cristinalindley. This lead steadily increased to 5-1 as play continued. With 7 million chips left, cristinalindley called little chief17’s reraise all-in with KsJs. Unfortunately, little chief17 had her dominated with AsJc. The board ran out Ts8d2dTc5c and little chief17’s ace kicker won him a gold jersey and a prize of $125,959.96 Cristinalindley won $106,460.01 for her impressive effort.
The results were as follows:
1st – little chief17 – $125.959.96
2nd – cristinalindley – $106,460.01
3rd – SNG Ninja – $95,968.83
4th – Dinjho – $52,306.24
5th – Alcatraz27278 – $38,344.80
6th – bethwolf22 – $27,529.60
7th – BikStik8585 – $19,664.00
8th – boltsva – $14,059.76
9th – Al-Extrem1 – $9,940.15