Poker News | Poker Blog

Today is the start of the 11th edition of the very popular series of poker tournament FTOPS which is held at Full Tilt Poker. It starts with a $1 Million guaranteed tournament with a $216 buy in today. All of the events are hosted by one of the sponsored professionals from Team FullTilt. In total there are 25 different events to be played and the one the main event has a price pool of $2.5 Million. At the moment there are qualifiers running for all the events if you would like to get in to one of these events for a low amount.

Here you have the complete FTOPS XI Schedule:

Feb. 4, 9 p.m. $200+$16 NL Texas Hold’em $1 million
Feb. 5, 2 p.m. $240+$16 PL Omaha 8 $200,000
Feb. 5, 9 p.m. $200+$16 Stud Poker $100,000
Feb. 6, 2 p.m. $300+$22 NL Hold’em 3xShootout $200,000
Feb. 6, 9 p.m. $200+$16 Limit Hold’em 6-max $150,000
Feb. 7, 2 p.m. $500+$35 PL Omaha 6-max $300,000
Feb. 7, 4 p.m. $100+$9 NL Hold’em Rebuy $500,000
Feb. 8, 2 p.m. $240+$16 NL Hold’em Knockout 6-max $600,000
Feb. 8, 4 p.m. $500+$35 NL Hold’em Heads-Up $500,000
Feb. 8, 6 p.m. $300+$22 NL Hold’em $1.5 million
Feb. 9, 2 p.m. $200+$16 HA $150,000
Feb. 9, 9 p.m. $1,000+$60 NL Hold’em Second Chance $1.5 million
Feb. 10, 2 p.m. $200+$16 NL Hold’em 1 rebuy, 1 add-on $300,000
Feb. 10, 9 p.m. $500+$35 H.O.R.S.E. $300,000
Feb. 10, 9 p.m. $200+$16 NLH Turbo 6-max $500,000
Feb. 11, 2 p.m. $200+$16 Omaha 8 $150,000
Feb. 11, 9 p.m. $300+$22 NL Hold’em 6-max Rebuy $1 million
Feb. 12, 2 p.m. $200+$16 PL Omaha Heads-Up $100,000
Feb. 12, 9 p.m. $300+$22 NLH 4xShootout 6-max $300,000
Feb. 13, 2 p.m. $200+$16 NL Hold’em 6-max $400,000
Feb. 13, 9 p.m. $300+$22 Razz $150,000
Feb. 14, 2 p.m. $5,000+$200 NL Hold’em 2-Day $2 million
Feb. 14, 4 p.m. $100+$9 PL Omaha Rebuy $350,000
Feb. 15, 2 p.m. $120+$9 NL Hold’em Knockout $750,000
Feb. 15, 6 p.m. $500+$35 NL Hold’em $2.5 million

There has never been a better time to sign up for an account at FullTilt Poker and we feel obligated to tell you about the Full Tilt Poker referral code EASYTILT that will give you a 100% bonus when you make your first deposit up to the maximum amount of $600. This is a great bonus that you will be able to clear while playing in the FTOPS events.

We will be covering most of the events and provide you with recaps of the final tables to make sure to bookmark this poker news site and check back for daily updates.

The online poker king Tom “durrrr” Dwan lost another $586k at the Full Tilt Poker this Wednesday, thus shooting his total losses in the month of January to a whooping $3.53 million.

According to the stats provided by HighStakesDB.com, the total loss has arrived after 25,218 tracked hands. This means that in the month of January, Tom has lost $140 on each hand he played. This will result into an all time low for any online cash game player; so everybody is waiting with a bated breath to see how Tom fares in the last three days to save himself from registering his name in the pages of history as a “player who lost the most at poker during a single month”. Tom is undoubtedly one of the best poker players in the world, but this year’s start has proved to be very disappointing for him.

The reversal of luck can be seen from the fact that he pocketed a cool $5.41 million in 223,259 tracked hands during the 2008 Full Tilt Poker. Now, he has thrown away almost 65% of that amount within the first 28 days of this year.

Tom’s big loss of has resulted into huge gains for both Gus Hansen and Patrik Antonius. Antonius is reported to have pocketed $2.7 million dollar this month and Hansen has managed to take home $2.2 million. They have both sucked away huge sums from Tom.

One thing is for sure that Tom has a huge wealth stacked in his bank, but it is to be seen whether he can sustain for a long period of time with his wealth being depleted at such a rapid rate. Even if he has a wealth of $10 million, he has already lost about 35% of it in the very first month of this year. This figure can be mind boggling for anybody.

In the face of such a huge loss “durrrr” has remained unperturbed and is confident of bouncing back by mid February. The name of his first opponent is still to be known.

Only two weeks in to 2009 the two Finnish players Patrik Antonius and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies have won over a million dollars. During one single night Antonius managed to win over a million dollars from “durrrr” at the poker tables.

Many thought this was the start of the famous “durrrr” challenge when they started playing but fortunately for durrrr it was not. It has been said that this challenge will not take place until after the Aussie Millions this year.

Another Finnish giant that has been doing well at the poker tables at Full Tilt is “Ziigmund”. After a couple of successful sessions against players like “MR B 2 U SON” he has won over a million dollars this year.

On a side note it is looking to be a really tough year for the “Great Dane” Gus Hansen after losing over a million dollars during 2009. He is now down a total of $3.3 Million over the last 12 months at Full Tilt Poker.

Poker player Tom “durrrr” Dwan for the third time during his short poker career has stacked up more than $1million dollars at Full Tilt Poker during a game Saturday. The other poker players that had the luck to accumulate a stack of the size Dwan did during the early morning game Saturday were Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies and Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond.

These are the only poker players that earned the stacks of this size and this does not include the limit games like poker player TexasLimitKing did several years ago. Dwan was able to do this for the third time at Full Tilt Poker while playing one of the high-stakes games of $500/$1000 No Limit Hold’em while at “RailHeaven”.

Dwan’s hand that raised his stake over the $1million dollar amount occurred while playing against Galfond, before the hand Galfond had a stack of approximately $120 thousand and Dwan’s stack was $924 thousand. Dwan was in the small blind, mastrblastr was in the big blind, when Patrik Antonius raised $3,500 and Galfond called. From the small blind Dwan raised up to $18,200, Antonius called and after summing up the situation Galfond pushed all-in. After Galfond pushed all-in causing Antonius to fold.

The hand Dwan showed was pocket Kings and Galfond was holding Queen-Ace off suit, the flop was 6-3-8 with two diamonds. On the turn the two of diamonds showed giving OMGClayAiken the upper hand since he held he Ace of Diamonds.

Dwan took the pot the for that hand, which had totaled $260 thousand when the river brought a Queen of spades and that put his stack over $1 million dollars.

Tom “durrrr” Dwan’s poker playing gave him the advantage of taking money from poker player Gus Hansen and Dwan has approximately $2 million dollars spread between 4 or 5 tables at Full Tilt Poker.

Yesterday I was railing the NL $500/$1000 CAP table at Full Tilt Poker. I like to watch this table since there is usually a lot of action going on.

One hand that cought my attention was the one between Phil Ivey and John Juanda. Juanda had been playing really tight for the last hours, come to think of it this is probably the first hand I saw him play.

It played out something like this….

John Juanda has the big blind and picks up 5-6 off suit. Phil ivey raises it up to $3000 under the gun and it is folded to Juanda who calls.

The flop comes 5-8-6 rainbow and Juanda raises with around $5K and Phil Ivey makes the re raise. Juanda then moves all in with the maximum of $30K and Phil Ivey calls showing 9-9 for an overpair.

The turn comes another 8 giving Phil Ivey two pair with nines and eights and is now ahead in the hand.

The river comes another eight giving Ivey the full house with eights over nines while Juanda holds eights over sixes.

This meant that Ivey could take down a nice $60K pot and Juanda lost even though he had Ivey dominated after the flop.

The Full Tilt Poker regular high stakes player Tom “Durrrr” Dwan ended up winning a decent sum of money at the NL $500/$1000 table RailHeaven. It was when another known high stakes player with the alias Ziigmund sat down at the table that the pots started to get huge. In one single hand Durrrr took down a nice pot of $400 000 and ended up winning a total of $700 000 for the day. Ziigmund on the other hand ended of losing $800 000 for the day but thanks to his fantastic start this month he is still up $800 000 for the month.

It is really amazing what amounts of money are changing hands on these table and if you enjoy watching high stakes poker games i really recommend checking out the table RailHeaven at Full Tilt Poker. There is no cash game online that will even come close to the action you will see here.

There is a referral code for Full Tilt Poker that will give you a $600 bonus and entries to resctricted freerolls and that code is EASYTILT. Enter this code when you sign up and you will receive a bunch of great extras when you play at Full Tilt Poker.

Like i have said before in the poker blog I am not really much of a railbird but after spending some time watchen the NL $500/$1000 CAP tables at Full Tilt Poker I have to say that it is very entertaining. The hands that take down the huge pots are often really crazy and i cant understand some of the calls that are made.

At the moment Gus Hansen is reall on Tilt and will probably donk off a whole bunch of money before his days is over.

I will attach two screenschots below of some hands that were played really crazy by Gus Hansen. In one of them he ended up winning $60K with KQ against AA where they were all in pre flop.

Enjoy!!

I was just railing the NL $500/$1000 CAP table at Full Tilt Poker when i came across a pretty sick hand involving OMGClayAiken, Ziigmund and David Benyamine.

This is how the hand played out:

Full Tilt Poker Game #8418022850: Table Alvarez - $500/$1000 - $30,000 Cap No Limit Hold’em - 16:34:51 ET - 2008/10/09
Seat 1: lolzcapaneo ($41,897)
Seat 2: Nuts78 ($26,897)
Seat 4: world1969 ($29,000)
Seat 5: durrrr ($51,341)
Seat 6: Ziigmund ($124,195)
Seat 7: David Benyamine ($86,094)
Seat 8: trex313 ($22,797)
Seat 9: OMGClayAiken ($147,729)
durrrr posts the small blind of $500
Ziigmund posts the big blind of $1,000
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
David Benyamine calls $1,000
trex313 folds
OMGClayAiken calls $1,000
lolzcapaneo folds
Nuts78 calls $1,000
world1969 calls $1,000
durrrr calls $500
Baisti sits down
Ziigmund raises to $30,000, and is capped
Baisti adds $30,000
David Benyamine calls $29,000, and is capped
OMGClayAiken has 15 seconds left to act
OMGClayAiken calls $29,000, and is capped
Nuts78 folds
world1969 folds
durrrr folds
Ziigmund shows [2d 2s]
David Benyamine shows [6c 6s]
OMGClayAiken shows [Ks As]
*** FLOP *** [Ah 9s Tc]
*** TURN *** [Ah 9s Tc] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [Ah 9s Tc 9h] [Kc]
Ziigmund shows two pair, Nines and Twos
David Benyamine shows two pair, Nines and Sixes
OMGClayAiken shows two pair, Aces and Kings
OMGClayAiken wins the pot ($92,997) with two pair, Aces and Kings
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $93,000 | Rake $3
Board: [Ah 9s Tc 9h Kc]
Seat 1: lolzcapaneo didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 2: Nuts78 folded before the Flop
Seat 4: world1969 (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: durrrr (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: Ziigmund (big blind) showed [2d 2s] and lost with two pair, Nines and Twos
Seat 7: David Benyamine showed [6c 6s] and lost with two pair, Nines and Sixes
Seat 8: trex313 didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 9: OMGClayAiken showed [Ks As] and won ($92,997) with two pair, Aces and Kings

I have attached a screenshot of the hand below for those of you who dont have the energy to read the hand history (I am planning on getting a plugin to make the HH a bit more reader friendly).

There are many things i dont understand in this hand…

• Why does Ziigmund go all in for $30 000 with 22 in a pot that is unraised?
• Why does David Benyamine call with one player behind when holding a mediokre hand like 66?
• What does OMGClayAiken think that the other two players have when he is calling with his AK off suit?
• Why cant I ever win with AK against two low pocket pairs?

I dont usually sit on the rail and watch these games so maybe thats why i find this play a bit odd. If you have more experience and feel that they all played super great in this hand feel free to leave a comment and say that i am a retard

It seems like Full Tilt Poker aim to please the railbirds as they recently introduced a table called RailHeaven. At this table the blinds are $500/$1000 which is by far the highest in the online poker world today. At these tables you will find all of your favourite players like Phil Ivey, David Benyamin, Patrick Antonius and many other high stakes pros.

It is not hard to understand why they named the table RailHeaven as the action on this table is really sick. It is not unusual to see pots over $100 000 and the highest pots that has ever been played is on this table at Full Tilt Poker.

This table is not for everyone however as it takes at least $50 000 just in order to sit down at the table. And i cant imagine what kind of bankroll you would need in order to actually be able to afford to play at this table. My guess is that very few of the players who are playing at this table can actually afford a really bad down period. This is probably why we see some players rise up to the sky one month and the next month he is nowhere to be found. But i am still happy that Full Tilt arranged a table like this as it attracts a lot of attention and it is really fun to watch.

If you have never tried out Full Tilt Poker i really suggest you head over there even if it is only to be one of the hundreds of railbirds watching this table. If you plan to try your luck at this poker room i would suggest using the Full Tilt Poker referral code EASYTILT as it will give you a nice $600 bonus when you make your first deposit.

The well known Full Tilt Poker player John Juanda took down the WSOPE Maint event a couple of hours ago. The final table lasted for an amazing 22 hours and the heads up battle to decide the winner lasted 7 hours. I can imagine that he will need some rest after this tournament. But at least when he wakes up in the morning he will find the WSOPE 2008 Main Event bracelet on his wrist and a nice £868 000 in cash waiting for him at the bank for his first place finish.

The second place finisher Stanislav Alekhin will not walk away empty handed either as he cashed in for £533 950 for his second place finish.

Here are the results of the final table of the 2008 WSOPE Maint Event

1. John Juanda £868 800

2. Stanislav Alekhin £553 950

3. Ivan Demidov £334 850

4. Bengt Sonnert £271 500

5. Daniel Negreanu £217 200

6. Scott Fischman £171 950

7. Robin Keston £135 750

8. Toni Hiltunen £108 600

9. Chris Elliot £81 450