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“theASHMAN103” is the winner of the $25K Heads Up Championship that is held once a year at Full Tilt Poker. In the final he managed the beat David Benefield and cashed in the first prize of $551.250. There were a total of 63 players participating in this tournament from the start and a lot of these were really big names in the poker world.

The results of the 2009 $25K Heads-up Championship at Full Tilt Poker

1. theASHMAN103 $551.250
2. David Benefield $315.000
3. WinnerFish $165.375
4. Yogiblair $165.375
5. Past $94.500
6. Kadabra $94.500
7. IvanLendL $94.500
8. Vaga_Lion $94.500

Even though the current recession is affecting the land based casinos it seems that the online poker rooms are not being affected, at least not in a negative way. According to the numbers at PokerScout.com online poker is continuing to grow by about 30% per year. Not all of the poker rooms on the internet are doing great though, there are a couple of big rooms that are starting to see their numbers drop but this is most probably not due to the recession.

The biggest poker room is still PokerStars who recently celebrated getting their 20th Millionth customer and they are growing more and more for each day. They are now also allowed to accept players coming from Italy on their Italian site PokerStars.it.

FullTilt Poker is the second largest poker room and they are also growing on a daily basis just like the Cake Poker Network and the Entraction Network. Entraction has grown a lot lately and this is mainly due to the fact that the poker rooms that were banned from the iPoker Network, NoIQPoker.com and CarlosPoker.com moved over to Entraction. Cake Poker is growing a lot since they have taken over all the poker rooms from the old Gold Chip Network that is no longer around. But it has to be said that Cake Poker are probably also growing due to the fact that they are offering some really innovative promotions with their Gold Card system at Cake Poker and Gold Chip Rewards.

On the losing side of things we find poker rooms like Bodog Poker, Everest Poker and Betfair Poker. Bodog Poker is the biggest loser on the list and this is probably due to the fact that they have been having a lot of problems paying their US customers as they have had their bank accounts in the US confiscated several times. It also didn’t help that they lost a law suit involving their domain name and had to change it from Bodog.com to NewBodog.com and finally to BodogLife.com which is their current name.

If you take a look at the list of winners from the last week FullTilt Poker is the biggest winner when it comes to player traffic. Last Sunday they broke their own record when they hit 18.565 players sitting at the cash game tables at the same time. Even the IPN Network (Boss Media) had a good week and managed to break their old record when they had 4509 players playing at the same time at the cash game tables.

It will be interesting to see if the recession will ever get to online poker or if it will keep on going strong. It has been a couple of years now that people have been saying that the interest for online poker will die out but it has yet to happen.

Andrew Feldman, a 21 year old paperboy from Watford has just signed a contract to join Team FullTilt Poker. Feldman have won over $4 million playing online poker at Full Tilt Poker.

About two weeks ago the British newspaper “The Sun” ran an article about Andrew Feldman who used to work as a paperboy in Watford but quit his job to pursue his carrier as a professional poker player. During the last 3 years he has gone from sitting at his parents house playing $1 Sit and Go’s to buying a flat worth $500.000 and a brand new sports car.

On top of all this he has now become a member of the ever growing Team FullTilt where he will team up with the likes of Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Phil Gordon and many others. With these other pro’s he will travel the world and play in the biggest poker tournaments wearing FullTilt Poker clothing.

Gus Hansen is also known as “The Great Dane” continues to climb on the list of the players who have won the most money during 2009. Last weekend he took on players like “durrrr” and “Ziigmund” at the high stakes cash game tables at Full Tilt Poker and it would prove impossible to win any of the bigger pots of the session against Gus Hansen.

When it was all said and done Gus left the table with a profit of over $1 Million and in total he has made a profit of over $4 Million during 2009.

At the same time as Gus is on a real hot streak Tom Dwan has hit a real cold streak and he is down over $3 Million for the year. He is also down in the poker challenge against Patrick Antonius where he will lose another $1.5 Million unless he manages to turn this bad streak around soon.

“durrrr” took back the lead in the “durrrr Challenge” this weekend. Between Friday and Saturday he lost the lead to Patrick Antonius but the day after he was back in the lead again.

This weekend Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Patrick Antonius managed to play 1000 hands in the famous “durrrr Challenge” that will last for 50.000 hands.

In total they have now played around 6000 hands of poker and Tom “durrrr” Dwan is in a small lead at the moment. In total Dwan have won 3208 hands and made a $15.258 profit so far into the Challenge.
The match has been going on for 18 hours and 35 minutes and during this time frame they have managed to have a turnover of over $33 Million over the 6000 hands played.

Hac Dang, or trex313 as he is known as at the FullTilt Poker tables have started of the year in an amazing way winning $4 Million in the first 3 months of the year. Trex313 has been dominating the high stakes tables at FullTilt Poker this year and no matter who he is up against he walks away as the huge winner.

During the starting months of the year there has been a lot of action at the Full Tilt Poker high stakes tables. A couple of players have been winning Millions while other has lost Millions. In other words it’s business as usual at FullTilt.

One of the biggest wins during one day of play was made by Sami “LarzLuzak” Kelopuro when he won over $1.5 Million during just one day.

A couple of days later it was Phil Ivey who crushed his opponents at the Omaha and Mixed tables at FullTilt. During the evening he took on players like “durrrr”, “LarzLuzak” and “Ziigmund”. After a couple of hours of play he left the tables with a nice $1.2 Million profit.

Even though these players have been making some good profit playing online poker it is still “trex313” who has been the big winner at FullTilt this year with his amazing $4 Million profit. It is obvious that this player is not scared of anyone at the poker tables as he has been playing against the likes of Phil Ivey, Patrick Antonius, durrrr, Ziigmund and LarzLuzak.

Hac Dang is the brother of Di Dang who is a well respected online poker player. Di Dang is more known under his online poker alias which is “Urindanger”. Over the last couple of years the two brother have won over $10 Million playing at FullTilt Poker.

FullTilt Poker are signing players over to their Team FullTilt like crazy for the last couple of weeks. The latest addition to the ever growing Team Full Tilt is the Argentinian poker pro Jose Barbero who recently signed a contract to join the team and start representing them in land based poker tournaments.

Jose Ignacio Barbero is born and raised in Buenos Aires and he is ranked the number one poker player in Argentina after many years of being a successful poker player. Last summer he managed to get in the money in two WSOP events and his latest tournament win came in January when he won a side event in the EPT Bahamas winning over $80 000.

Barbero will now become the first poker player from Argentina to join Team FullTilt with players like Phil Ivey, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson and Howard Lederer.

“I am very happy to have been given the opportunity to represent Argentina and FullTilt Poker, I would like to thank everyone at FTP who beleive in me and i look forward to give it my best at the poker tables as a Team FullTilt player in the future”, Barbero said in an interview.

Barbero is represented by the poker agents Poker Icons and with the help of his agent there the deal with FullTilt Poker which is one of the largest poker sites in the world is now sealed. He will be playing poker online at Full Tilt Poker under his own name and using his own avatar so if you feel like taking him on you know where to find him in the future.

A couple of weeks ago the first match in the durrrr Challenge started. The marathon match between Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Patrick Antonius will last for 50.000 hands and it is expected that one of these players are going to win a big amount of money. But so far we have not seen a lot of the normal crazyness at the tables as they have been playing realtively small and controlled pots. After 13 hours of play and a bit more than 4000 hands played it is durrrr that is in the lead in this challenge with a profit of $140.380.

At the FullTilt Poker website you can follow all the action and get the latest statistics from this challenge. You will also be able to get all the latest info in our Poker News blog so make sure to stay tuned here as well.

According to the information found at the FullTilt website it shows that the total turnover generated by this challenge so far is $23 Million which is a lot considering it is only two players playing in this challenge.

The statistics also show that durrrr has won the most hands but Antonius is winning higher amounts in the pots that he is taking down.

On the FullTilt durrrr challenge website you will also be able to see re-runs of the biggest pots and on the top of this list at the moment is a $166.580 pot.

Phil Ivey lost a coin flip against the Finnish poker profile Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies that cost him $128 000 but he still managed to end the session with a $1.1 Million profit.

Ivey had a really good day yesterday when he ended up winning $1.1 Million dollars at the high stakes tables at Full Tilt Poker. Most of the money came from Tom “durrrr” Dwan. He could have won even more though but a coin flip against “Ziigmund” would end his day.

Both players decided to go all in before the flop no matter the cards they were dealt and the pot reached $258 000 after they both went all in. Ivey was dealt the hand 2d, 2s, 2c and 7d which is a really poor hand in Omaha. Ziigmund had Ivey completely dominated when he flipped over his hand showing 4d, 4c, 7c, and Jh. The flop, turn or river did not bring any help to Phil Ivey who ended up losing this $258 000 pot to Ziigmund.

I still think Phil Ivey was pretty happy leaving the table when it was all over and adding $1.1 Million to his already huge bankroll.

When you see players like Phil Ivey and “Ziigmund” at the tables at FullTilt Poker you know you are in for a real treat.

Last weekend they really did not let down the hundreds of railbirds watching the table where they were playing.

After playing for a couple of hours Ziigmund asked Phil Ivey if he wanted to make one flip. They decided to flip for what they had in front of them and since Ziigmund had $200.000 at the table and Phil Ivey had him cover they decided to flip for $200.000 each. This means that there was $400.000 to be won in that pot.

Here is the chat where the decided to make the flip:

Ziigmund: lets take 1 flip
Phil Ivey: how much?
Ziigmund: what do u think
Ziigmund: ????
Phil Ivey: what u have in front of u?
Ziigmund: when i flip i really flip
Phil Ivey: hahaha
Ziigmund: ok all in
Phil Ivey: k this hand for what u have in front of u
Ziigmund: ok gl m8
Phil Ivey: thx u2
Ziigmund: 247Q
Phil Ivey: j10 6 4

With the cards they had on hand Phil Ivey was a slight favourite to win the pot but only be a very small margin.

The flop gave Ziigmund 2 pair and on the river he completed a full house and took down the $400K pot.

After the hand was over Ivey told him that drinks would be on Ziigmund next time they meet but something tells me that this does not really hurt the pocketbook of a man like Phil Ivey.