Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

Enough with the Russian jokes, let’s talk poker. To be more specific, let’s talk about a player at Full Tilt called “Ilovepoka”, a Russian player at the FTOPS X Main Event final table last night.

During a key hand, another Russian player named “Supervorot” was apparently trying to collude with Ilovepoka. After a player called “Nordberg” raised, “Papham9” and Ilovepoka called to see a flop of Kd 6d Qd. The first two players checked and after a brief pause, Supervorot types into the chat box: “I had QK”.

Now let’s take a look at this, first of all it’s a clear violation of Full Tilt Poker policy (and poker ettitique in general) to NOT announce your hand or a hand you folded when other players are still left to act. We can safely assume that since only a complete idiot would do something like this at a final table where six figures were at stake, that he didn’t mean to type it into the chat box.

So what does that leave? There’s speculation by some that he “meant” to type this into his AIM account so that the other Russian player would know how to react. What evidence do we have of that? Simple, after taking a few seconds and requesting time, Ilovepoka bet out and wins the pot.

Collusion or just a moron? You decide.

Pic – http://www.flickr.com/photos/21526244@N06/3041853480/

What a weekend this was for online poker!  There was the $10k buy-in WCOOP Event, the $2.5 Million at Titan, and last but not least, the $25K PLO Heads-up event at Full Tilt Poker.

Many of the Full Tilt Poker pros littered the field of 64 players, but only 8 of them would go on to make it into the money.  The tournament lasted 2 days starting on September the 6th, wrapping up yesterday with an incredible final table.

In the end only one player could go on to win, and that honor went to slaktarn, a resident high-stakes PLO player at Full Tilt.

Here are the full results from the $25K Heads-up PLO Tourney:

1 slaktarn – $560,000
2 Patrik Antonius – $320,000
3 Urindanger – $168,000
4 Ugadabugada – $168,000
5 trex313 – $96,000
6 David Benefield – $96,000
7 SteveSung – $96,000
8 Eric Kollmann – $96,000

To play in future events, or watch events like this one live online, visit FullTiltPoker.com

This Sunday at Full Tilt Poker 4,880 players plunked down $500+$35 to play in the FTOP Main Event. Many of them found themselves at a table with one of the 60 Full Tilt Pro players who also dotted the field (The pro that lasted the longest was Kelly Kim, one of the final 10 players remaining in the 2008 WSOP who busted in 16th).

With a massive first place payout of $432,400 (US) payday, the games best were battle ready looking to cash big. When the smoke cleared after a little more than 11 hours play, the final table was decided. While no Full Tilt pro players graced the table, the warriors that made it this far now had their sights set clearly on the near half million-dollar payday.

The final table began with the following players/chip stacks:

Seat 1: valleyho (4,177,484)
Seat 2: Pokerguru19 (1,252,960)
Seat 3: dubbeemin (3,574,154)
Seat 4: hemlock1313 (1,273,018)
Seat 5: sckilla (5,646,087)
Seat 6: aaaFRANCESCOzzz (1,641,169)
Seat 7: TiltinShoes (3,472,702)
Seat 8: tvcsa (1,426,134)
Seat 9: TheTotalPkg (1,936,292)

It didn’t take long for the first elimination – With the blinds at 60/120K and 15K antes, dubbeemin made a raise to 280K UTG. TiltinShoes then re-raised to 600K. It was folded back to dubbeemin and popped it back to 1.3M. TiltinShoes then pushed all-in and was called in a hurry by dubbeemin.

TiltinShoes: As Kc
dubbeemin: Ah Ac

Flop: 3s 2d Qs
Turn: 3c
River: 5s

Bad time to pick up AK obviously when the chip leader (who barely has you out stacked) is holding Aces!
There were a few more clashes but nothing earth shattering like the first one that lead to a heads up battle for the first place money between dubbeemin and valleyho. By this time dubbeemin had a commanding lead with 18.7M chips to valleyho and his humble stack of 5.7M. It was almost over just a few hands into the match when both players got all of their chips in with dubbeemin holding pocket 10’s and valleyho holding pocket 8’s. Making a set of 8’s on the turn saved valleyho the early defeat.

The final hand saw both players seeing the flop after a small raise from valleyho in the BB to 725,555. The flop showed 9c 7c 6h and valleyho led out for 999,955 (he obviously likes 555), dubbeemin raised to 3.5M and valleyho went into the tank before pushing all in. dubbeemin didn’t think long before calling.

valleyho: Kc 10c
dubbeemin: Qc Jc

Turn: Ad
River: Jd

Both players felt good with their flush draws until the showdown that had valleyho holding a big lead. Unfortunately, the river brought the Jack for dubbeemin and with that, the tournament concluded after more than half a days play. For his efforts, dubbeemin took down the $432,400 pot along with a gold FTOPS jersey.

Full Tilt Poker player hAAydon took down one of the biggest online poker tournaments tonight after winning the 2-day FTOPs Event #22.  HAAydon outlasted the field of 942 in the $2500 + 120 buy-in NL Holdem event hosted by Full Tilt Pro, Patrik Antonius.

There was a little annoyance though at the final table.  When it reached just 3 players, hAAydon, triathlon4 and knickadam55 decided that they wanted to work out a deal.  Unfortunately, Full Tilt support was nowhere to be found!!!  What the hell is wrong with these guys that they can’t dedicated 1 support person to an event as large as this with so much money at stake.  This kind of thing would NEVER happen at PokerStars.  In the chat some of the players expressed their frustration with comments like, “triathlon4: you are kiddin me” and “hAAydon: lol support”.  Knickadam55 finally decided to email support and the 3 went on away in hopes that a support person would come to the table.  After waiting over 5 minutes, no support was to be found.

Strangely enough, the players were destined for their final standings as the tournament ended in order based on the chip counts they had when they tried to iron out a deal.  This probably cost the 2nd and 3rd finishers  thousands of dollars, but it worked out quite nicely in hAAydon’s favour as he took home over $541k for the win.

The final table also featured one of poker’s funniest players, Tony Guoga.  Tony even did a few endorsements for his PokerNews.com site in the chat, but eventually was busted in 6th place.

Here are the final 10 for this event:
1 – hAAydon – $541, 650
2 – triathlon4 – $341,475
3 – knickadam55 – $235,162
4 – sebbau – $194,287
5 – BootySmooth – $147,187
6 – Tony G – $105,975
7 – theMightyZep – $70,650
8 – Yeshaya – $55,107
9 – ClockWyze – $40,035
10 – Erich Kollman – $22,372

This event took place on FullTiltPoker.net

Isaac Baron, commonly known online as Menlo, WestmenloAA and more recently the guru 11 on Full Tilt Poker, took down the first event of Full Tilt Poker’s FTOPS series of events.  Isaac outlasted 4,157 players in the $200 + $16 NL Hold ‘em 6-Max Event.

This win propelled Baron into 2nd for CardPlayers’ Online Poker Player of the year a title that he won last year.  Baron is off to a really good start this year.  He finished 4th at the EPT in Monte Carlo for just under $1 Million (USD), and many big wins online.

Here are the final results from event #1:
1      the guru 11      $158,852.23
2     dan_dada     $97,297.20
3     TheFunseeker     $67,525.92
4     commitment     $49,896.00
5     jnjnlee86     $36,590.40
6     CABOWABO23     $24,948.00
7     Danuglyman     $16,049.88
8     imperior     $16,049.88
9     PokerGPScom     $10,561.32
10     GreatDANbino     $10,561.32

The FTOPS tournament runs for the next few weeks on Full Tilt Poker.  Players have twenty-four chances to bring home FTOPS gold; with over $10Million Guaranteed!  There are 24 events total, so check out Full Tilt Poker today.

Full Tilt Poker’s FTOPS VI starts today!  This is one of the biggest series of tournaments in online poker.  There is more than $9 million in guaranteed prize money!  Some of the best things about this tournament: