The biggest FTOPS game before the Main Event ended in disappointment for Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey, but saw an exciting final table with lots of great players.
The event, a two day no limit hold’em tournament with an ante from the start, did not have enough players to reach its $2 million guaranteed prize pool despite being hosted by Tom “durrrr” Dwan. But with a $2,100 buy-in, the game was filled with pros and talented aggressive players.
The final table consisted of, in order of finish, heads up cash game regular urbandb888, palmao, psychobenny – AKA Benny Spindler, who finished third in PCA 2009 – , 6-max cash regular moi_rhums33, Bussa Buss, departure, ags104, Pork no chop, and IIaCe4Huk. Psychobenny came to the table with a large chip lead that he managed to turn into a third place win. The nearest pro to make the final table was Marcus Lehmann, who finished 28th.
Early in the tournament, Phil Ivey was the chip leader in a pool of 946 players. However, he lost half of his stack in a big hand against KagM7F7, who cold-called pocket kings and hit a set on the turn. KagM7F7 check/raised the turn and overbet on the river to double up. Ivey mucked his hand, but most likely had a weaker set. He was never able to get his stack back up, and finished 288th.
Host Tom Dwan finished very close to Ivey, at 293rd, but was playing short for most of the game. He fell behind early, with only 2,000 chips, and put on his “angry face” avatar.
Tom Dwan is angry because of his short stack in FTOPS XVI Event 25
He doubled up against JUMP PUTT and eventually worked his stack up to 7,000, but was unable to recover from being so far behind and busted out soon after.
Late game, psychobenny held a dominant chip lead from the time when three tables remained to the start of the final table, where he entered with 1.75 million. Behind him, palmao and Bussa Buss had the largest stacks, at 901K and 842K, but the two of them combined still had less chips than Benny “psychobenny” Spindler. Departure and IIaCe4Huk held the smallest stacks, at around 225K. IIaCe4Huk was the first to bust.
urbandb888 began his victory run when he took a huge pot over 1.1 million chips off psychobenny in this incredible hand:
Blinds 6,000/12,000 ante 1,500
psychobenny is MP+2 with 1,684,089
urbandb888 is CO with 497,480
3 folds, psychobenny raises to 24,000, Pork no chop calls, urbandb888 raises to 88,888, 3 folds, psychobenny calls, Pork no chop calls.
Flop (296,664): 10c 10d 2s
psychobenny bets 43,210, 1 fold, urbandb888 calls
Turn (383,084): 4c
psychobenny checks, urbandb888 bets 363,882 All-In, psychobenny has requested TIME, psychobenny calls.
River: 7s
psychobenny shows QdAh for Ace Queen high
urbandb888 shows AsKc for Ace King high
urbandb888 wins the pot (1,110,848)
Pork no chop busted next to Bussa Buss, who took the chip lead with a set of jacks. Next, psychobenny busted ags104. depature tried to make a deal, but few players were interested and Bussa Buss refused to accept any offer. Urbandb888 narrowed the field and enhanced his stack by taking large amounts of chips from the departure, Bussa Buss, and moi_rhums33, who finished 6th, 5th, and 4th.
Coming into the final three, urbandb888 held a massive chip lead, with 3.5 million, over 60% of all chips on the board. His opponents both held relatively small stacks, at under one million each. Since none of them wanted to finish third, psychobenny and palmoa played a conservative match that gave urbandb888 a clean first place victory, with second place going to palmoa and psychobenny settling for third.