FTOPS XIX hasn’t stopped rolling since February 3rd and shows no signs of slowing down. Last night, Event #31 became the latest tournament to enter the Full Tilt history books, with 729 players setting down the $500 + $35 entry fee.
Each and every player who harboured ambitions of winning an FTOPS title that night was required to win the equivalent of three separate Sit & Gos. This was a Shootout tournament, where each table played down to the last surviving combatant, before mashing together the last men or women standing to do it all over again. The format was No Limit Hold’em and the guarantee was set at $350,000.
The 729 who signed up for Event #31 were just enough to tip the prize pool above the guarantee, leaving $364,500 to be shared amongst the top 81 finishers. The tournament would take a full 7 hours to complete, relatively short where big tournaments like this are concerned.
The host for this event was a young lady by the name of Melanie Weisner. Known to many as Callisto, she has made her name as an online heads-up expert. Having graduated with a degree in Musical Theatre from NYU, she dedicated herself to poker full time. Among her live successes are a victory in the 2009 EPT Prague Ladies Event and a €25,000 cash in Monte Carlo. She also plied her one-on-one expertise to a cash in the 2010 Heads-Up Championship at the World Series of Poker.
Melanie showed why she has amassed $1.7 million career earnings in her short career to date, cashing in Event #31 for $1,530.90. Joining her in the money were a couple of fellow Full Tilt Pros. Eddy Scharf ended his run in 65th and Jono Karamalikis bested them both with a 16th place finish.
The only player to win three shootout tables was MrDoggy, better known as Chris Klodnicki. The Vooreheees native has over $3.4 million in lifetime winnings and can now add the $76,545 Event #31 first place prize to that total. Chris will be best known to live poker aficionados as one of the few players to just miss out on the first ever November Nine. Which is what you get for finishing 14th in the 2008 WSOP Main Event.
In second place was theshepard07, who, although he can’t quite match the prestige finish of his heads-up vanquisher, does have a 14th place finish in the FTOPS XVI Main Event to his name. Third place prize money went to pro Mario Silvestri, who’s nick on Full Tilt is Pwnasaurus.
Final Table Payouts for FTOPS XIX Event #31 were as follows:
1 MrDoggy $76,545.00
2 theshepard07 $51,030.00
3 Pwnasaurus $36,450.00
4 ScarJo $27,337.50
5 iseeyouthrough $20,047.50
6 knickadam55 $14,580.00
7 evenkeal777 $10,206.00
8 LilPokerGirlie $6,925.50
9 DarkHorse19 $4,920.75