Unfortunately, summer is inching closer to the end with every passing day, but even though that means less fun outdoors and colder weather, it also means that more and more players will be steadily returning back to the virtual felt to play the best game in the world!
For tournament fans there is definitely no better choice than PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker and for the third straight weekend in a row all the Sunday major tournaments have seen a steady increase in players and thus an increase in prize pools. Not only that, but the FTOPS series running on Full Tilt Poker is attracting huge amounts of players and awarding 6 figure scores almost daily.
But first thing’s first, let’s start with the good old Sunday Warm-Up. This was probably the most interesting heads-up match of the weekend as Martin “AABenjaminAA” Hruby, a member of Team PokerStars Pro battled a well-known high stakes pro “PokerSavage1” who currently resides in Mexico. Players skipped out on a deal and eventually it was “PokerSavage1” who came out on top. The last time “PokerSavage1” came close to winning a PokerStars Sunday Major was in 2008 when he finished 2nd in the Sunday Million for over $120,000, this time he got the job done though and against some fierce competition, too!
The Sunday Million saw a three way deal being struck as the last three players decided to play it safe. “PKaiser” and “poker@luffyD” both got $155,000 out of the deal, but the chip leader at the time was high stakes pro “snake8484” from Canada $175,000 out of the deal and easily cruised to victory after that. His previous biggest score was a 3rd place finish in the WCOOP Sunday Second Chance for $81,600 which was crushed by this major win.
The Sunday 500 saw no deals being made and eventually it came down to a heads-up match between “padjes” from the Netherlands and “pablito_2121” from Belgium. After a long battle it was “pablito_2121” who came out victorious for a score of $62,090.00!
Sundays FTOPS events saw some great action and some very well-known pro’s getting very close to winning them. The day started off with FTOPS event #19 where 5,232 players showed up, creating a prize pool of more than $500,000. Out of this huge field, one of the all-time online tournament greats – Chris Moorman appeared to battle “I Follow Rivers” heads-up. Naturally Chris was probably well aware of his edge over almost any opponent so no deals were made. However, after a long battle Chris had to admit defeat as “I Follow Rivers” won the title and the $89,467.20 first place prize!
Shortly after FTOPS event #20 kicked off with an even bigger $750,000 prize pool on the line. This time, however, the pros were left in the dust as Germany’s “BrickAndCRAI” took down the whole thing for $142,500.00. In heads-up play he defeated “OMGELBARTU” from Switzerland, but perhaps the most interesting fact is that this was only his 29th tournament on Full Tilt Poker!
The day finished off with event #21 which did not attract a huge crowd, but the quality of the players was definitely higher than most events. Eventually it was Jeff “YoungSupremacy“ Hakim who took down the $17,732.00 first place prize. Jeff is one of the most accomplished online players with titles in such series as SCOOP and WCOOP, and now he has added another FTOPS title to his impressive record!
Sunday Warm-Up
$215 buy-in
3268 runners
$653,600 prize pool
1. PokerSavage1 $102,616.19
2. AABenjaminAA $76,471.20
3. [FB]Voodoo $53,922.00
4. HOMERos $37,582.00
5. EMPTY1SEAT $27,778.00
6. grigorq77 $21,242.00
7. SiSiFamille $14,706.00
8. mctoad99 $8,170.00
9. Jord4n $5,228.80
Sunday Million
$215 buy-in
7159 runners
$1,431,800 prize pool
1. snake8484 $175,782.23*
2. poker@luffyD $155,782.22*
3. PKaiser $155,782.23*
4. ENIGMA4U4ME $75,885.40
5. iChipd $58,703.80
6. sh4wshank $44,385.80
7. sergito80 $30,783.70
8. UlDuffer $17,181.60
9. anculinka $11,096.45
Sunday 500
$530 buy-in
778 runners
$389,000 prize pool
1. pablito_2121 $62,090.00*
2. padjes $58,500.00*
3. kisulik777 $37,733.00
4. G’s zee $28,202.50
5. Monk532 $19,605.60
6. Roberta114 $15,715.60
7. Bianconero12 $11,825.60
8. jadedjason $7,974.50
9. mindgamer $4,862.50
FTOPS Event #19
$129 buy-in
5,232 runners
$523,200 prize pool
1. I Follow Rivers $89,467.20
2. MoormanI $62,260.80
3. Pandochka515 $44,472.00
4. mandza17 $33,484.80
5. kimble83 $25,087.44
6. Pizzicato_Xev $17,265.60
7. Farzinem $11,248.80
8. charly3005 $7,848.00
9. Ozzy 87 $5,493.60
FTOPS Event #20
$320 buy-in
2,444 runners
$750,000 prize pool
1. BrickAndCRAI $142,500.00
2. OMGELBARTU $98,775.00
3. bexundso1 $69,750.00
4. abeainy $52,500.00
5. mendieta19 $39,000.00
6. PureCash25 $28,500.00
7. BIGBIGWINNAR $20,250.00
8. Specunder $14,250.00
9. DSmunichlife $9,750.00
FTOPS Event #21
$215 buy-in
403 runners
$80,600 prize pool
1. YoungSupremacy $17,732.00
2. BubbleBoy87 $12,090.00
3. Bullyon $8,946.60
4. Pavalinya $6,851.00
5. SkartyMJK $5,077.80
6. Tustca $3,627.00
7. karolis666 $2,659.80
8. DealMeInFast $2,015.00
9. thereal_bandito $1,531.40