Let’s start with the obvious. The online poker world was blindsided this past Friday when the US Department of Justice along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation indicted six owners of PokerStars, FullTilt, and Absolute/UB along with five parties involved with payment processing. These rulings forced the major online sites serving the US market to shut their doors to American poker players. While most felt this could cause a huge downturn in the online poker world it has actually made just a small dent. Current estimations have the US market as about 20% of the online poker playing base and while that is a significant portion of players it will not cause online poker to disappear. For Americans, the hope is the game will quickly become regulated inside the United States, making playing poker even safer and 100% legal. While players were doing nothing illegal in the past they can hope there will be a day where the social stigmas against playing poker are lifted and the games can grow to levels unseen.
This shake up was felt at PokerStars and especially FullTilt whose FTOPS XX was kicking off this weekend. While guarantees were lowered to make up for the loss of US players there were still some huge events on Stars and FullTilt. With PokerStars and FullTilt taking hits other sites looked to step up their tournament game. While we rarely cover these events in the Sunday Tournament Report the time has come to look at a few other sites and what they bring to the Sunday scene.
One of the few “big” sites still supporting Americans’ rights to play online poker is Bodog. The online sportsbook, racebook, casino, and poker room will now carry the torch for those inside the US wanting to play online poker. While their player base is just a fraction of major sites like PokerStars and FullTilt they did recently begin allowing Canadian poker players which has given them a small boost. Still, their Sunday major, the $100,000 guaranteed, has been sorely lacking in attendance. For those playing this is great of course as there is constantly a huge amount of overlay. This past weekend just 615 players entered the $100+$9 event causing Bodog to take $38,500 out of their own pockets to cover the guarantee. For those involved it meant an additional $62.60 in EV which is great for your ROI. Two players making noise at the final table were “Anabooola89” and “Balla686” both of whom are no strangers to big scores online. In fact, Balla686 has seen great success in this very event, winning it three separate times over the past 3 years including once earlier this year for $25,000. His 3rd place finish here was the 7th time he has reached the final table and the best result other than his wins. Runner-up Anabooola89 hasn’t seen as much success in the $100k but has done quite well on other sites nearly winning the Quarter Million on Stars in 2009 for $36,465.
It will be interesting to keep an eye on the attendance in the $100k now that a lot of American MTT grinders will turn to sites such as Bodog for action.
Bodog Sunday $100k Guaranteed
615 Entrants; $100,000 prize pool
1. IVELIN5 $23,600
2. Anabooola89 $13,600
3. Balla686 $9,100
4. jarlop $7,000
5. woodbine ave $5,700
6. PocketAids $4,500
7. amob $3,300
8. Joneser159 $2,200
9. TheHesse $1,300
One site which said goodbye to Americans altogether back in 2006 was Party Poker. One has to wonder whether or not their decision was a good one as the past five years they were replaced atop the online poker scene by both PokerStars and FullTilt. Still, they might be getting the last laugh as uncertainty surrounds the likes of PokerStars and FullTilt. Before online poker legislation hit in 2006, Party Poker was the premier site. With a wide variety of games and a plethora of fishy players, Party led the way during the post-Moneymaker poker boom. Even with leaving the US market Party was able to sustain itself as as top-5 poker room. While their software might be slightly behind the curve they now have a chance to reclaim the top spot in the online poker world. To do so, they will need to improve their tournament guarantees. The biggest event from this past weekend was the $250,000 guaranteed. The $215 buy-in failed to surpass its quarter million guarantee as just 1,203 players entered the high-stakes event. While $20,000 in overlay was welcomed by those playing it’s not a great sign of things to come. However, there was plenty of uncertainty this past weekend and as things calm down we fully expect the action to pick back up.
Taking full advantage of the smaller field were a handful of solid online grinders. Huber “YrrsiN” Stefan, a top-ranked high-stakes player finished in 4th place for $14,375. The well known online pro has won the $1k Monday on FullTilt and the Super Tuesday on PokerStars with in the past two years. His biggest scores came on FullTilt earlier this year where he earned $171,754 in FTOPS XIX and $125,008 in the $1k Monday Multi-entry event. Finishing in 2nd place was Dan “shady_deuces” McGregor, a Canadian professional who won the $24k on FullTilt last year for $20,947. Taking home the $250k crown and a nice $52,500 pay-day was unheralded “DINAMO_K73″ who secured just the second five-figure score of his career on Party Poker. The $50k+ prize was by far and away his biggest score, easily beating a 6th place finish for $10,350 in this very event back in 2008.
Party Poker Sunday $250k Guaranteed
1,203 Entrants; $250,000 prize pool
1. DINAMO_K73 $52,500
2. shady_deuces $30,000
3. Arndt114 $18,125
4. YrrsiN $14,375
5. REG_CL3AN3R $11,375
6. T_Kahlmeyer $9,375
7. Bailey2010 $7,125
8. Halfrek1623 $4,750
9. musashimaru1 $3,625
Another room which will garnet a lot of attention going forward is the flagship of the iPoker Network, Titan Poker. Once an online juggernaut Titan went much of the way Party Poker did when they left the US market back in 2006. Much like Party Poker their Sunday tournament schedule is much smaller than PokerStars or even FullTilt but they do have one big event each weekend, the $200k guaranteed. With a $215 buy-in the event needs merely 1,000 players to reach its guarantee and it did so yesterday by a hair. With 1,003 players on the hand the tournament was able to forgo any overlay. Two known players making final tables runs were Marc “sluglife” Macdonnell and Andy “aajjhh” Holman. Holman was certainly the more experienced of the two having made deep runs on Titan, Cake, Party, and PokerStars with in the past few years. His $22,066 score here ended up surpassing a 4th place finish in the $250k on Cake for the biggest score of his career. Macdonnell ended up one spot worse in 3rd place earning $16,048 in the process which was also the biggest cash on his resume.
Titan Poker Sunday $200k Guaranteed
1,003 Entrants; $200,600 prize pool
1. durbo $42,126
2. aajjhh $22,066
3. sluglife $16,048
4. eamsie0O7 $12,036
5. rebma $10,030
6. FiskeBendtner $8,024
7. ryyta $6,018
8. binbetak $4,012
9. Moentmester $2,808
PokerStars appears set to march onward despite the DoJ indictments. While they were forced to lower their guarantees due to losing a significant portion of their player base, they still ran by far and away the biggest set of tournaments this past weekend. Some changes to note, the $1.5M is now just a $1M guarantee, the Warm-Up has been reduced from $750k to $500k (but still nearly hit the $750,000 mark) and the Second Chance was cut in half from $250,000 to $125,000. The Second Chance saw the biggest drop attendance wise due to its late start. In the past the Second Chance was full of Americans and devoid of most Europeans because of the late afternoon start.
The Sunday Million still attracted 6,475 amidst controversy which is just an incredible number of players amidst all the uncertainty. The final table was full of players who took the risk to play on Sunday but didn’t want to risk giving up a big score as the last six players decided upon a chip chop with payouts ranging from $88,967 to $114,571. Taking home the title was “guaicuru” who earned an additional $20,000 which PokerStars set aside during the deal talks. This was quite the score for a player who rarely participates on PokerStars. In fact, guaicuru hadn’t done anything of note on PokerStars ever, truly a rags to riches story.
PokerStars Sunday Million $1M Guaranteed
6,475 Entrants; $1,295,000 prize pool
*6-way chop
1. guaicuru 07 $121,830
2. tropicana111 $94,773
3. 1fishboon $114,571
4. weygang $101,710
5. SamDMND $88,967
6. Fufu9 $91,460
7. 4Lisa $28,490
8. yarikru $15,540
9. MAS2184 $10,036
Much like PokerStars, FullTilt continued to march on. This meant that FTOPS XX was a go as Event #1 kicked off the 20th installment of the FullTilt Online Poker Series. The prize pool guarantee was dropped to $1,000,000 but the tournament remained a multi-entry event. The $216 tournament had plenty of professionals on hand including Caio Pimenta, Bruno Stefanelli, Steve Yea, and Soren Kongsgaard. While players like Allen Cunningham, Brandon Adams, Andrew Lichtenberger, and others were missing for obvious reasons the FTP contingent still had a nice showing. Kongsgaard made a great run all the way to the final table where he eventually finished in 3rd place for $172,616. Soren was part of a three-way chop which left him just $2,000 shy of the top earner, “DQnk”. Event #1 was a solid start to FTOPS XX, be sure to check back here over the next few weeks for updates on all the major events and changes to any of the prize pool guarantees.
FullTilt Online Poker Series XX Event #1 $1M Guaranteed
6,953 Entrants; $1,390,600 prize pool
*3-way chop
1. DQnk $174,977
2. pokerfrance $155,107
3. SorenKongsgaard $172,616
4. Whoozz $86,217
5. Tig15 $62,577
6. 1XSilverX1 $44,499
7. travisoch $29,619
8. c-biz-kid $20,580
9. El_Fishi $14,462