This past Sunday was significant even for small stakes tournament players as two huge MiniFTOPS events were scheduled to take place. The second of the day featured No Limit Hold’em with a $30+$3 buy-in and an absolutely amazing $400k guaranteed. An astounding 15,914 players registered for the event, creating a prize pool that surpassed the guarantee and boasted $72,873 for 1st place. It isn’t every day you can win over $70k in a $33 freeze-out!

It also isn’t every day you encounter a $33 tournament with such a good structure. Everyone started with 5,000 chips, and the blinds started at 10/20. While the blind levels were only 12 minutes at the start of the tournament, they slowly increased as time went on. The levels near the end of the tournament were 20 minutes long.

The top 1,890 players cashed the event, with the minimum cash being $47.74. JonoKaramilikis was the best finishing Full Tilt Pro at 696th place for $100.26.

Now let us dive in to some final table action. Here were the stacks going into the final table:

1 – AAKingKilaAA – 20,456,128
2 – PaULiStAnOPimP – 16,158,872
3 – Obvamentz_IMO – 11,545,843
4 – SPK69 – 7,497,876
5 – qwaccok – 7,302,014
6 – pmshoww – 6,354,945
7 – porkey_m11 – 3,918,675
8 – TigBitties2 – 3,181,724
9 – Ch3rish – 3,153,923

The first big hand at the final table was a big double up rather than a bust. In a blind versus blind pot, qwaccok made a large raise and TigBitties2 pushed over the top with A7o. qwaccok quickly called with QQ, but his hand would not hold as an A appeared on the flop right away. TigBitties2 breathed a sigh of relief as the rest of the table sighed in disappointment, and play continued.

One blind level later qwaccok got another huge pocket pair, and this time it would hold. He raised it a bit over the minimum UTG and porkey_m11 pushed all-in in the SB with 88. The board came A high, but this time qwaccok was pleased to see it as he held AA. porkey_m11 busted in 9th place for a relatively disappointing $4,726.46.

The next elimination came during the same blind level. TigBitties2 min raised in mid position with ATo and pmshoww shoved over with an 18bb stack with KQo in the SB. TigBitties2 quickly called, and as pmshoww was unable to hit a pair, he busted in 8th place for $6,683.88.

Let’s move on to the next blind level, 170k/340k with a 40k ante. AAKingKillaAA opened for 700k on the button and SPK69 pushed all-in in the BB for 7.1 million chips. AAKingKillaAA called with AJs and was racing against SPK69’s TT. The flop came J high and SPK69 did not hit a T, so he was sent to the rail in 7th place for $9,070.98.

Obvamentz_IMO did not enjoy the sequence of hands that occurred shortly afterward. He was sitting on a comfortable 48bb stack 6-handed, but he lost a flip with AKo to qwaccok’s 66 and quickly lost almost half of it. He then got very unlucky and lost an all-in preflop pot to Ch3rish with AQo versus ATs, leaving him with a mere 10bb. He must have been understandably frustrated at this point, and he shoved his last 4.4 million chips on the CO with 75s. He got called by TigBitties2’s ATo in the BB and could not win the hand, leaving him with just 500,000 chips. He busted the very next hand and ended up with the first five figure cash of the night: $12,651.63.

The final table was now 5-handed, but for some reason qwaccok, who was 2nd in chips, sat out at this point. His stack became dead money and play continued on with 4 players.

Ch3rish was the next to go. He pushed over PaULiStAnOPimP’s CO raise and PaULiStAnOPimP called with TT. Ch3rish had A5s but was not able to hit a pair or a flush, so he busted in 5th place for $17,664.54.

Several chips were traded between the remaining players before the next elimination. Soon AAKingKillaAA was the chip leader and TigBitties2 was the short stack, although qwaccok, who was still sitting out, had him outchipped by only a slim margin.

TigBitties2 would not hang around long enough to wait for qwaccok to blind out, however. He decided to limp/call the chipleader’s raise UTG with A9o. He eventually got it in with top pair on a 983 flop, but AAKingKillaAA had QQ. The board came running 6s which did not help TigBitties2, and he busted in 4th place for $24,825.84.

No one else would bust before qwaccok blinded out. PaULiStAnOPimP doubled up, and then the two remaining players traded chips until qwaccok’s stack was 0 and he was removed from the table in 3rd place for $34,612.95. That’s not to say that AAKingKilla and PaULiStAnOPimP merely folded to each other while qwaccok was sitting out, but I daresay they decided to play more cautiously than usual.

When they were finally heads-up, the two players made a deal. 1st place was originally set at $72,873.39 and 2nd was set at $48,935.55. With the deal, PaULiStAnOPimP received $64,050.70 and AAKingKillaAA received $57,758.24. The two players then went on to play for leaderboard points and the silver jersey. They ended up getting it in on a flop where PaULiStAnOPimP had top pair and AAKingKillaAA had bottom pair. PaULiStAnOPimP’s hand held and he claimed the official 1st place spot in the tournament.

Congratulations to everyone that cashed the event! Please see below for the final table payouts and be sure to come back to FTR for more MiniFTOPS coverage.

1 – PaULiStAnOPimP – $64,050.70
2 – AAKingKillaAA – $57,758.24
3 – qwaccok – $34,612
4 – TigBitties2 – $24,825.84
5 – Ch3rish – $17,664.54
6 – Obvamentz_IMO – $12,651.63
7 – SPK69 – $9,070.98
8 – pmshoww – $6,683.88
9 – porkey_m11 – $4,726.46