MTT Review: FTOPS Crowns Julian Verse as Main Event Champ

MTT Review: FTOPS Crowns Julian Verse as Main Event Champ

Tuesday, 18 November 2008

Well-known online poker room Full Tilt Poker’s FTOPS tournament series is absolutely tearing through its tenth incarnation, with the guarantee of $15,000,000 a vast underestimation – in the end Full Tilt gave away $17,482,300 in prize money over the course of the series.

With one of Full Tilt Poker’s resident pros hosting each event and as much variety in the games as you could wish for, the only thing that should have stopped you from entering was the high buy-ins – wait, no, that’s no excuse for not playing satellites.

On Saturday night, DuckU, better known outside of poker circles as Greg Hobson, took down the No-Limit Hold ‘em Shootout tournament for $87,000 last night. In addition to this victory Hobson has placed third in the World Championship of Online Poker $530 6-max rebuy event for $119,000. In the live arena he has cashed in the World Series of Poker 2007 Main Event.

In the second event played on Saturday, the $109 Pot-Limit Omaha with rebuys, kutuz_off outlasted 962 entrants to win $92,000. The New York City native is an actuary outside of poker but this win coupled with previous final tables in tournaments such as second in the Full Tilt $750k Guaranteed or a victory in the PokerStars Sunday Second Chance means he might giving up the insurance premiums game soon.

The highlight of FTOPS for all concerned was the event that should be the main – the big daddy, a $5,200 buy-in tournament with $2,000,000 guaranteed hosted over two days. That favourite of pro games, No-Limit Hold ‘em deepstacked 6-max. Full Tilt pro Brandon Adams made a huge run into the event but unfortunately bubbled the final table. He nevertheless took home $57,500 for his performance in the 500-player event. This pales in comparison to the $550k that amak316 received for taking it down. November Nine player Craig Marquis finished an impressive 24th.

However, that wasn’t the main event, which saw 5,225 players take to the virtual felt and exceeding the $2.5m guaranteed prize pool by over $100k. Eric Lindgren, Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey and thousands of Full Tilt players turned out for their shot at glory. Julian Verse received $450,708.50 (it’s that fifty cents that makes all the difference) and the illustrious title of FTOPS main event champion.

Speaking of champions, it’s all too easy to forget the PokerStars Sunday Million during FTOPS but you’d be wrong to do so. This week a near-$200,000 first place prize was given kesher79, who wound up flopping a set of deuces and making quads on the river in the final hand to extract value on every street from second-place finisher rS. Wisdom.



Tags: Poker News, MTT, Review:, FTOPS, Crowns, Julian, Verse, as, Main, Event, Champ