Last week I had the pleasure of attending a charity poker tournament hosted by Dan and Beth Shak.  The “All in” for Kids Poker Tournament was to raise money for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  Participants included poker legends Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke along with celebrity chef Bobby Flay and ex-pro athletes Ricky Bottalico and Mike Quick.

The 120 players donated $5,000 each to enter the event along with $500 rebuys and a double add-on after the first 90 minutes.  Throw in a silent auction and money-raising prop bets at the table and the players raised over $825,000 for the hospital’s Center for Palliative Medicine.

More details after the jump including video interviews with Beth Shak, Phil Ivey, and Phil Hellmuth discussing Peter Eastgate taking his record for youngest WSoP Main Event Winner.

I’ve attended my fair share of poker tournaments over the last few months but I don’t think I’ll ever see another $5k event that will quite live up to this one.  This was purely an exercise in philanthropy as there was no cash money paid out, the winner would have naming rights to the new Center for Palliative Medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Held on the 36th floor of the Manadrin Oriental in NYC, the night was more of a party then a tournament.  Hellmuth spent as much time MC’ing the action as he did playing his hands, they spread a world class buffet including a sushi chef and the two open bars were hoping right up to the point of shutting down.  Phil Ivey bid on and won a used watch during the auction for $27,000 apparently just because he wanted to make sure an opponent did not walk away with it.  Beth Shak continued to prompt and prod players to make additional donations as the players began to move all-in.  One player reportedly promised another $50,000 to the charity if the dealer would be kind enough to provide him with the needed 3 outter.  The dealer pealed off an Ace on the river and the gentleman pulled out his checkbook.

It was a great time held for a great cause.  During the course of the evening we were able to get some interviews and I’ll wrap up by passing them along.

David Pham at Foxwoods World Poker Finals
Photo credit: WorldPokerTour.com

Last week was a good one for David Pham.  On November 11th he finished fourth in Foxwoods World Poker Finals for $240,344 then turned around and finished third the very next day in FTOPS X Event #16 for near $112,000.  By any measure, that is one fine week.

The rest of Team Full Tilt seemed to dominate the event even without collecting the win.  Get the rest of the numbers after the jump.

412 players paid $10,000 to play in Foxwoods World Poker Finals creating a $3,876,508 prizepool. Jonathan Little won the event for $1,120,310, this is his fourth final table and second WPT win. This was the seventh WPT final table for David Pham and fifth for Mike Matusow. Of the 412 players, 50 made the money and 7 of them play under the Full Tilt flag.

4th - David Pham - $240,344
6th - Mike Matusow - $124,048
14th - Bill Gazes - $32,950
21st - Phil Ivey - $27,135
22nd - Gavin Smith - $27,135
41st - Svetlana Gromenkova - $21,320
43rd - Chris Ferguson - $21,320

Mike Matusow at Foxwoods World Poker Finals
Photo credit: WorldPokerTour.com

Full Tilt blogger Michael Craig runs deep in FTOPS X Main Event

FTOPS X finished up early this morning when over 5,000 players built a prizepool which exceeded $2,600,000. Each player started with 7500 in chips plus 15 minute levels, this was guaranteed to be an event that drew the top online players and there was plenty of room to make moves. 11 members of Team Full Tilt would cash in the event with resident FTP blogger Michael Craig and Peter “nordberg” Feldman the last standing.

Julian Verse took down the $450k top prize after nearly 12 hours of play concluding play in this incarnation of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series. There was a ton of great play over the last 25 events and exceeded expectations. FTP guaranteed $5,000,000 in prizes and the final prize pool topped out at $5,908,900 with over 20,000 players in all events.

After leading the unofficial Poker From the Rail Red Pro leader for the first half of FTOPS X, Aaron Bartley had to give up the top spot to David Pham who pulled in over $111k in the $300 rebuy Event #16. Pham eventually finished the series with $126k and Bartley’s series finished up with $72k. Bartley also led the pros in number of cashes (5 total) followed by Brandon Adams, Huck Seed, Stuart Paterson and Ali Sarkesik all with 4.

At first glance it doesn’t not seem like the red pros had a great run this FTOPS but statistically it was a success. They were responsible for 3.4% of the buyins (707 of 20783) yet pulled out 7% of the prizepool ($413,437.30 of $5,908,900). They started off slow but picked it up at the end in the big events. I’m sure there are quite a few wishing they had a better series, but it was a great run by some big names.

Here is your final Red Pro leaderboard. You can see the official Full Tilt leaderboard for FTOPS X by clicking here

1. David Pham - $126,879.90
2. Aaron Bartley - $72,149.24
3. Brandon Adams - $58,665.75
4. Nordberg - $19,291.24
5. Craig Marquis - $17,500.00
6. Ram Vaswani - $16,912.50
7. Brian Hastings - $7,700.00
8. HuckleberrySeed - $7,684.82
9. Gary Jones - $6,757.00
10. Stuart Paterson - $5,640.00
11. Roy Winston - $5,513.20
12. PearlJammed - $5,310.62
13. Berry Johnston - $4,774.38
14. Michael Craig - $4,571.88
15. Ali Sarkeshik - $4,429.94
16. Jeff Madsen = $4,294.38
17. dmmikkel - $4,293.28
18. Sandra Naujoks - $3,411.75
19. Richard Ashby - $3,343.00
20. Clonie Gowen - $3,018.09
21. Eddy Scharf - $2,909.87
22. Christian Kruel - $2,375.00
23. Jeremiah Smith - $2,340.00
24. TheWacoKidd - $2,260.20
25. Martin Klaeser - $1,921.17
26. Bruce Buffer - $1,800.00
27. Eli Elezra - $1,620.00
28. Luis Velador 7 - $1,411.89
29. Josh Arieh - $1,387.62
30. Steve Zolotow - $1,358.50
31. Maciek Gracz - $1,353.00
32. Chip Jett - $1,106.53
33. S Gromenkova - $833.58
34. Leandro Brasa - $809.87
35. Stefan Rapp - $750.00
36. Fabrice Soulier - $679.25
37. Julian Gardner - $675.00
38. Keith Sexton - $665.60
39. Hans Vogl - $660.00
40. Steve Yea - $499.41
41. Barny Boatman - $479.94
42. Adam Schoenfeld - $461.16
43. Beth Shak - $420.17
44. Chris Wolters - $393.12
45. Brad Booth - $378.90
46. Scott Fischman - $369.18
47. BrunoStefanelli - $363.89
48. Lee Watkinson - $355.68
49. R Romanello - $328.90
50. Scott Clements - $328.90

Phil Ivey and John Juanda get wrapped up in the largest online poker hand to date.

October 26, 2008, $500/$1000 No Limit Hold’em.

Stu Ungar won the 1997 WSoP Main Event at the outdoor final table

The final table of the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event has played itself out over the last two days and we have a new champion. It was a unique situation where we had 4 months between hands from 10 handed to the final table but that’s just one twist the WSoP overlords have come up with in the history of this event.

On the eve of ESPN broadcasting the final table action, blogger “Tuscaloosa” Johnny takes a look at some of the other interesting changes they’ve attempted with the WSoP and how they worked out.

World Series of Poker innovations have been hit and miss
By “Tuscaloosa” Johnny Kampis

The move by Harrah’s to delay the final table of the 2008 WSOP Main Event by four months in an effort to generate more publicity has seemed to fallen flat. Time will tell how successful the decision has been, but we certainly haven’t seen the November Nine on Letterman reading Top 10 lists this summer. Perhaps the lack of media buzz has been due to many other more newsworthy and pressing topics over the last several months taking over newspaper and television coverage (the election, economy and Olympics certainly come to mind), but I believe the lack of buzz could have been expected. Poker is still mainly a niche activity, despite its overall popularity. The people who love it eat up all news about it, but those who only see it as an enjoyable hobby aren’t going to go out of their way to seek information about the November Nine.

This controversial decision by Harrah’s is certainly not the only major overhaul of the WSOP over the years. Let’s take a look at how well some of the other changes have been received.

More after the jump

Birth of a tournament
It’s well know that the first WSOP wasn’t even what we call a tournament today. A handful of players put up their own money and played cash games for several days. Johnny Moss won the first one in 1970 by popular vote (after players were told they couldn’t vote for themselves). Observers were bored so the Binions had to find a way to make it a contest. “Amarillo” Slim Preston had the idea to make the WSOP a freezeout, where players would begin with a fixed amount of chips and could not rebuy. This format in which the players battled until only one remained was adopted in 1971. Moss beat a field of six others to win again and the tournament format was born. Who knew then that this would be such a HIT that the WSOP would have nearly 9,000 players in its main event 25 years later?

A cheaper way in
Eric Drache, tournament director for the WSOP for much of its early history, started the first satellites in the early 80s when he convinced a table full of players to each risk the $1,000 they had on a cash table to play a freezeout for a WSOP seat. This was the greatest innovation for increasing the numbers of players at the WSOP as it later spawned the numerous online satellites we now play today. It’s estimated that more than half, if not three quarters, of players who now play in the main event get in by satellites in some shape or form. Drache’s big HIT made the WSOP more of an open tournament, where more recreational players entered. Tom McEvoy became the first winner who got in via satellite in 1983.

The silver anniversary
The 1994 event was the 25th, or silver, anniversary of the WSOP and the Horseshoe decided to give the champion his weight in silver in addition to the $1 million grand prize. Not surprisingly, Jack Binion was rooting for the small Stu Ungar to win it, but he was out on the first day. Russ Hamilton had been filling his gut with steak dinners during the tournament and during the weigh-in prior to the final table clocked in at 330 lbs. Hamilton ended up winning the tournament and $28,512 worth of silver bars. It was a cute gimmick of its time and certainly paid dividends for Hamilton, but similar giveaways haven’t really been introduced since. The silver giveaway was neither HIT nor MISS.

The sweltering heat
To spice things up, the 1997 final table was played in Fremont Street, under the canopy in the 98 degree heat. A pane of Plexiglas was needed to keep the board cards from blowing away and commemorative coins minted for the event were used to hold down players’ hole cards. Players suffered through the final table, which was historic for being Ungar’s third and final win. Otherwise, this innovation was a big MISS and was not repeated.

Back to Binion’s
The 2005 WSOP was the first to be held away from the world famous Binion’s Horseshoe after Harrah’s purchased the rights to the tournament and moved it across town to its Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino. Although there were kinks in Harrah’s maiden voyage with the property, the WSOP went well and few observers could imagine the hordes of people fitting into the Horseshoe had the event been held there that year. The plan (supposedly helped by a little arm twisting by Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman) was to play the final three tables of the main event back in Benny’s Bullpen at the Horseshoe. So, like it or not, the final 27 players spent the last two days in Binion’s and Joe Hachem was the ultimate winner. The move was a MISS because hardly anyone wanted to return to the old stomping grounds to conclude the event after spending the past month in the spacious Amazon ballroom at the Rio.

Andy Black hosted FTOPS X Event #8

This tournament came one buyin away from topping a $700,000 prizepool for a little NLHE 6-max Knockout action.  It provided a Sunday afternoon full of craziness as players realized they were freerolling with just a handful of knockouts under their belt.

Four members of Team Full Tilt grabbed their first cash during FTOPS X but none made a very deep run.

Recap after the jump

This event was a blur to me as it was tough to keep up with all the action while keeping my eyes on the laptop and the scrolling of the NFL scores at the local adult beverage drinking establishment. No Limit Hold’em plus 6-max plus knockout bounties makes for quick action and more bad beats than normal.

Here are your final table numbers complete with a pro player from London taking it down.

1st - whatariver1 - $137,153.80
2nd - Emansnrg - $86,075.40
3rd - Fzth1 - $58,783.20
4th - gogogivestack - $45,487.00
5th - EddyStoefs - $31,840.90
6th - zapatero - $21,693.80

whatariver1 - Laurenc Houghton of London had quite a Sunday on Full Tilt. Besides his win in FTOPS X Event #8, he also finished 2nd in the $22,500 guarantee and 4th in the Sunday Night Mulligan. This is his 13th tournament win on Full Tilt which includes over $91k for winning a Monday $1k event.

Fzth1 - his best finished before this event was a 14th place showing in the FTOPS IX Main Event for $17,000.

Luis Velador followed up his Team Full Tilt last longer act Saturday night by being the final member standing Sunday afternoon. 4 other players natched their first cash of the series but there are no major moves at the top of the Poker From the Rail Red Pro Leaderboard ©. Aaron Bartley continues to crush the rest with $68,000+.

1. Aaron Bartley - $68,149.24
2. Brian Hastings - $7,700.00
3. Gary Jones - $6,757.00
4. Ali Sarkeshik - $2,405.00
5. Jeremiah Smith - $2,340.00
6. Berry Johnston - $1,680.00
7. Luis Velador 7 - $1,411.89
8. HuckleberrySeed - $910.00
9. Chip Jett - $696.53
10. Hans Vogl - $660.00
11. Adam Schoenfeld - $461.16
12. Beth Shak - $420.17
13. Scott Fischman - $369.18
14. BrunoStefanelli - $363.89
15. Scott Clements - $328.90
16. R Romanello - $328.90
17. PearlJammed - $326.20
18. Brandon Adams - $321.91
19. 58 tied still waiting on their first cash

2008 World Series of Poker Event #32 winner Luis Velador
Photo credit: LasVegasVegas.com

Rebuy tournaments are notoriously tough to determine whether a guarantee will be reached and Event #7 proved the point giving the players a nearly $40k overlay. The $100+9 No Limit Hold’em with unlimited rebuys attracted 1,893 players with 2,658 rebuys and 1,083 add-ons missing the $600,000 guarantee. $123,600 would be awarded to the last player standing.

2008 World Series of Poker Event #32 winner Luis Velador would be the member of Team Full Tilt to last the longest.

Recap after the jump

At first glance the final table did not seem all that exciting until you take into account that the combined career earnings by these nine on Full Tilt alone nearly exceed $2,000,000 starting with event winner cane3418 who is professional player Tim Seidensticker.

Final table results and notes:

1st - cane3418 - $123,600
2nd - Tomsk400 - $81,600
3rd - 4XTRADER - $60,600
4th - van voot - $47,400
5th - Hixx - $35,400
6th - FromThaGroundUp - $24,600
7th - the aviator1 - $15,000
8th - Stinky Budz - $10,200
9th - ICGOODTHINGS - $7,200

cane3418 - professional player Tim Seidensticker has over $500,000 in career tournament earning on Full Tilt and two cashes in the 2007 World Series of Poker.

4XTRADER - over $200,000 in tournament winnings on Full Tilt including several wins in $100 rebuy events over the last few months.

Hixx - professional online tournament with earnings over $300k on Full Tilt including a day in July when he won both the $90k guarantee NLHE and $20k guarantee Pot Limit Omaha tournaments. He also won his way into the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event.

FromThaGroundUp - second place in this same event during FTOPS VI as well as several big runs in the Sunday Mulligan tournament.

the aviator1 - former FTOPS event winner taking down the $500 HORSE during FTOPS VIII.

It was a short night for most of Team Full Tilt with only 20+ signing up for the rebuy craziness. Hans Vogl busted moments after the money bubble and 2008 WSoP bracelet winner went the deepest finishing in 66th place. That adds two more names to the Poker From the Rail Red Pro leaderboard.

1. Aaron Bartley - $68,149.24
2. Brian Hastings - $7,700.00
3. Gary Jones - $6,757.00
4. Ali Sarkeshik - $2,405.00
5. Jeremiah Smith - $2,340.00
6. Berry Johnston - $1,680.00
7. Luis Velador 7 - $1,020.00
8. HuckleberrySeed - $910.00
9. Chip Jett - $696.53
10. Hans Vogl - $660.00
11. Adam Schoenfeld - $461.16
12. Beth Shak - $420.17
13. Scott Fischman - $369.18
14. PearlJammed - $326.20
15. 55 tied with no cashes

Brian Hastings of Team CardRunners ran deep in FTOPS X Event #6

FTOPS X Event #6 attracted 642 entrants for the $500+35 6-max Pot Limit Omaha tournament just missing the $350,000 guarantee bringing a little overlay to the players. It looked like was a great chance for two members of Team Full Tilt to make the final table but fell short.

Recap after the jump.

Aaron Bartley seemed to be on an endless good run and the field was dropping quickly when he was moved to a table with fellow FTP’er Brian Hastings who also was flaunting a large chipstack. Bartley’s night came to a quick and spectacular end in two monster hands. He was sitting with a top 5 chip count with just under 30 players remaining yet lost two pots to finished in 24th. Brian Hastings was one of the players to receive a chip boost when he turned a bigger two pair against Bartley, the money went in on the flop.

Hastings himself seemed destined to make his first final table of FTOPS X but seemed to contract Bartley’s “crash and burn with a big stack” disease finishing 8th just off the final 6.

Your final tale and results:

1st - Broberts85 - $75,250
2nd - thecranium - $49,350
3rd - xquadfourskinx - $35,455
4th - d3fault - $26,950
5th - BubonicPlague - $19,250
6th - pu-sdaeh - $12,250

Broberts85 - over $200,000 in career earning on Full Tilt tournaments including a win in the $65k Guarantee and two previous FTOPS final table appearances.

BubonicPlague - adds $19k to his bankroll just 3 days after winning The Fifty-Fifty for $20k+.

One of the more successful tournaments for Team Full Tilt as far as the number of players making the money. There were far fewer pros in this event yet 5 players made the money besides Brian Hastings late run. Aaron Bartley continues his heater with his 4th cash in 5 events played, Ali Sarkeshik with his second cash of FTOPS X, Berry Johnston and Huck Seed finish out the list with their first cash of the series. Aaron Bartely still head the Poker From the Rail Red Pro leaderboard.

1. Aaron Bartley - $68,149.24
2. Brian Hastings - $7,700.00
3. Gary Jones - $6,757.00
4. Ali Sarkeshik - $2,405.00
5. Jeremiah Smith - $2,340.00
6. Berry Johnston - $1,680.00
7. HuckleberrySeed - $910.00
8. Chip Jett - $696.53
9. Adam Schoenfeld - $461.16
10. Beth Shak - $420.17
11. Scott Fischman - $369.18
12. PearlJammed - $326.20
13. 53 with the same number of cashes as myself. Zero.

Scott Fischman was the sole member of Team Full Tilt to cash in FTOPS X Event #5

FTOPS X Event #5 was a $200+16 Limit Hold’em 6-max tournament.  Thoughts of watching paint dry and grass grow run through my mind.  879 players bought in creating a $175,800 prizepool.  The final table resembled a United Nations committee with players from the US, Norway, Australia, Canada and Germany.

Recap after the jump.

Deep stack and limit hold’em carried this tournament for just shy of 9 hours and final 6 battled it out for the $37,533.30 first place pay. The multi-national participants were a collection of players without any major victories other than former FTOPS winner voguepergola.

1st - tommy2tyme (US) - $37,533.30
2nd - Kometen1 (Norway) - $24,612
3rd - voguepergola (Australia) - $17,580
4th - jallajalla12 (Norway) - $13,360.80
5th - thankstwink (Canada) - $9,493.20
6th - torskii (Germany) - $6,065.10

voguepergola - previous FTOPS winner with his score in FTOPS VIII Event #5 Stud/8.

jallajalla12 - has two wins this year in the 65k Guarantee for over $16,000 each time.

thankstwink - 12 straight tournaments without a cash turns around with a $9,000+ payday.

It was another rough tournament for Team Full Tilt as Scott Fischman was the only member to cash in this tough event for $369.18. Aaron Bartley continues to lead the pack with over $66,000 over the first 5 events.

1. Aaron Bartley - $66,084.24
2. Gary Jones - $6,757.00
3. Jeremiah Smith - $2,340.00
4. Ali Sarkeshik - $1,320.00
5. Chip Jett - $696.53
6. Adam Schoenfeld - $461.16
7. Beth Shak - $420.17
8. Scott Fischman - $369.18
9. PearlJammed - $326.20
10. 51 players still waiting

Aaron Bartley came close to winning one for team Full Tilt in FTOPS X Event #4

FTOPS X Event #4 was a $300+22 with 1 rebuy and 1 add-on tournament that drew 815 players, 558 rebuys and 538 add-ons. The $300,000 guarantee was not reached so there a bit of an overlay for the event. Aaron Bartley is officially having a great start to FTOPS X with his 3rd cash in the first 4 events and a $64,000 payday for his 3rd place finish.

Recap after the jump.

It was a tough final table with plenty of successful online tournament specialists doing battle for the $138,000 first place prize. There was a ton of experience in evidence while no one was willing to go away quietly and the game finally ended after 8 hours of play.

1st - GrampaJeff - $138,000
2nd - mightypirate - $87,000
3rd - Aaron Bartley - $64,500
4th - mrcall912 - $49,500
5th - dbones6 - $37,500
6th - djmanga - $27,000
7th - darrenelias - $18,000
8th - raidalot - $14,040
9th - Shakar513 - $10,200

GrampaJeff - our winner is online professional player Jeff Gray who has over $1,000,000 in career earnings playing big tournaments. He picked up $138,000 for a 8 hours work in Event #4.

dbones6 - before the $37,500 score in this event his biggest score of Full Tilt was winning his way into the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event through a $200 shootout.

djmanga - he has this final table appearance to go along with his FTOPS VI Event #8 $1,000 6-max final table as well as several in the Monday $1,000 buyin tournament.

darrenelias - also had a 6th place finish in FTOPS VII Event #9 for $49,000 a win in the $90,000 Guarantee this August.

Aaron Bartley - the current leader amongst Team Full Tilt with his 3rd cash in 4 events.

2 other members of Team Full Tilt made the money along with Bartley with their first cashes in FTOPS X. Jeremiah Smith finished in 23rd for $2,340 and Ali Sarkeshik with $1,320. We have a new leader atop the Poker From the Rail Red Pro Leaderboard and someone is going to have to make a big move with Aaron Bartley apparently riding a huge heater.

1. Aaron Bartley - $66,084.24
2. Gary Jones - $6,757.00
3. Jeremiah Smith - $2,340.00
4. Ali Sarkeshik - $1,320.00
5. Chip Jett - $696.53
6. Adam Schoenfeld - $461.16
7. Beth Shak - $420.17
8. PearlJammed - $326.20
9. 49 tied with zilch