Prepare yourself this Friday, December 4th. Start doing everything that needs to be done by that date such as taking the dog to an afternoon walk and the girlfriend to the cinema, and also start stashing the Red Bull and espresso coffees, because you will be doing some hardcore grinding from that day on (action begins at 4pm ET) all the way until 4PM ET Sunday, December 6th. Play your favorite Sit-n-Go tournaments during that timeframe on Full Tilt Poker and you will win your cut of Leaderboard prize money, tickets to the Madness Raffle and entry to the Madness Freeroll, which has a guaranteed prize pool of $50,000 and a $0 entrance fee.

Participating in this excellent promotion is as easy as breathing. All you have to do is register and play in the Sit-n-Go’s highlighted in green at your desired buy-in level. The buy-ins for these tournaments are split into four separate groups as follows:

•    Group A:    $1 to $2
•    Group B:    $5 to $11
•    Group C:     $20 to $33
•    Group D:     $50 to $110

This promotion will last for 48 hours. These hours will be divided into 24 two-hour blocks (for example 4pm et to 6pm et, 6pm et to 8pm et, etc), and there will be a leaderboard for each of the four groups for every block. The top seven players in each group will be paid at the end of every block in the following way:

—           GROUP A        GROUP B        GROUP C         GROUP D
—           $1 to $2          $5 to $11          $20 to $33        $50 to $110
1st place     $20                 $100                 $200                  $500
2nd place    $12.50            $60                   $125                   $300
3rd place     $7.50              $40                   $75                     $200
4th place     $5                    $25                   $50                    $125
5th place     $2.50              $12.50              $25                    $60
6th place     $1.50              $7.50                 $15                    $40
7th place     $1                    $5                      $10                    $25

There is also an overall leaderboard, and it does not work in the way you expect it to so pay attention. The overall leaderboard is determined by the best performance in one of the two-hour time periods BUT not cumulative! This means that if you play a block and earn, say, 150 points for your performance, and then for another block you earn 86 points, only the 150 points will count towards the overall leaderboard. The top two players will square off in a $5K Sit-n-Go freeroll where the top 3 places will be paid. That particularly juicy tournament will take place the following weekend, on Saturday December 12th at 15:05 PM ET to be exact. This means you should not only grind mindlessly, but you should actually try to put on a good show!

But wait, there is more. Even if you cannot win a decent amount of Sit-n-Go’s to save your life and/or not able to place on any of the many leaderboards, and also fail to win a prize in the Madness Raffle, you can still win a whole lot of money with the $50K freeroll. Entering that freeroll is dead easy: only thing you have to do is win any two Sit-n-Go’s during the promotion hours, which would be between Friday 4th and Sunday 6th, 4pm ET to 4pm ET. Oh come on, you can accidentally win two at the donkstakes, so you do not have a valid excuse to not take part in this free money thing.

And then there’s the Madness Raffle. Every time you cash in any of the green Sit-n-Go’s during this awesome promotion, you will get one ticket good for entry into a drawing for some cool items from the Full Tilt Store. Also available as prizes in the raffle will be Tournament Dollars and Satellite Tokens. There will be more that 1,000 prizes up for grabs; just ask Tyche the Goddess of Chance to be on your side (and the more tickets you have, the easier it will be for her to be at your side) and you will take home some of the following cool items:

Prizes Awarded
FTP Deluxe Home Game Package (Deluxe Poker Table, Deluxe 500 Piece Chip Set, Black Leather Poker Deck Case, Red Leather Poker Deck Case) 1
500 T$    10
200 T$    25
$75 Satellite Tokens 75
$26 Satellite Tokens 100
Full Tilt Poker T-Shirts 300
Full Tilt Poker Hats 600

That’s it. Tons of ways to win good money in the following weekend, all the while you will be collecting an excellent amount of FTP Points along the way.  Get the things you have to do out of the way, so you will be able to grind unimpeded to collect your share of these crazy prizes (while trying to maintain your sanity. Good luck with that!)!!

(written by Jack Sawyer)

If you are looking to rail, the action begins at 3 pm ET on Saturday.  The tournament will play down to the final four players before calling it a day.  Then, on Sunday, the final four players will square off at 4 pm, looking to take down a huge prize and major bragging rights.

There’s no doubt that some of the best high-stakes players in the world will be on hand to take part in the action.  Last year’s winner, slaktarn, will likely be on hand to defend his title, while Patrik Antonius will be looking to improve on last year’s second place finish.  Other players expected to play include Cole South, Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen, Phil Ivey, and Full Tilt’s newest member of Team Full Tilt, Tom Dwan.  It’s not yet known whether or not the latest high-stakes sensation, Isuldur1 will take part.  Some players may be hoping he’ll pass, as he’s been crushing some of the best players on Full Tilt in past weeks (albeit mostly at no-limit Hold’em and not Omaha).

If you have the roll, you can buy-in directly for a cool $25 grand, or if you’re a little more frugal and don’t mind the work, you can satellite your way in for as little as  $500.  Just check the Full Tilt Poker lobby for all of your options.  Even if you aren’t playing, there’s sure to be some great action so don’t miss it!

Bloch is a very accomplished poker player, however, many will know him as one of the members of the famed MIT blackjack team.  He used his winnings to pay for his Harvard law education and to begin his poker career.  Andy Bloch has over $4.1 million in tournament winnings and has authored “The Pocket Idiot’s Guide to Poker Tells.”

He was joined by over 20 other Full Tilt Pros and Friends of Full Tilt, distinguished by their names appearing in red instead of the standard black.  Among the pros were many of the usual suspects, such as Jon Turner (PearlJammed), Vitaly Lunkin, Scott Fischman, Lee Watkinson and Huck Seed.   Johan Brolenius, a Friend of Full Tilt and member of the Swedish National Ski Team, was the last red name standing as he finished in 45th place, winning $1,289.38.  The only other Full Tilt Pro to make the money was Aaron Bartley, going out in 241st place and taking in $420.45 for the effort.

It took about 9 hours to get down to the final table of 9 players.  When it did, it was very apparent this would be no easy win for any one of them.  There were truly some tough tournament players left to battle it out for the top prize of $113,801.80.  Among the players left were muckducks, who has a recent win in the  $33k guarantee on Full Tilt and also won  FTOPS XI Event #1 earlier this year.  Also alive at the final table was S_Dot111, who has several 1st place finishes this year including in the $85k guarantee re-buy and the $40k guarantee re-buy on Full Tilt, as well as LuckyLukeKK, who claimed 2nd in the PokerStars Sunday Million and 2nd in the Full Tilt Fifty-Fifty in recent months.

But in the end it came down to two other tournament veterans, SaulGood and UFman2.  SaulGood has several nice finishes this year and countless final tables, making him a very feared tournament player and always a threat to take it down.  However, the battle saw UFman2 come out on top of this one.  UFman2, who goes by PiKappRaider on Stars, is no stranger to the final table of big tournaments.  He can claim wins in the $1M guarantee on Full Tilt (late last year), the $100k guarantee on Ultimate Bet, the $109 tournament on Stars, and also a FTOPS win earlier this year in event #17 of FTOPS XI.  The two struck a deal before play concluded that would see the winner taking $102,240.40 and the runner up taking $85,000.

1st – UFman2 – $113,801.80 ($102,240.40 after deal)
2nd – SaulGood – $73,438.60 ($85,000 after deal)
3rd – SmokeChoke – $54,378.20
4th – TIGR778 – $40,923.80
5th – muckducks – $28,590.60
6th – LuckyLukeKK – $19,060.40
7th – 007-2053 – $12,893.80
8th – S_Dot111 – $8,969.60
9th – Tarsis – $6,727.20

Team Full Tilt consists of some of the best poker players in the world.  Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Jennifer Harman, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Phil Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel,  Andy Bloch, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen, Allen Cunningham, and Patrik Antonius make up the formidable squad.  Now, add Tom Dwan to the mix, more commonly known by his online screen name, durrrr.  Ironically, he’s the newest member since Antonius, who was added in June of 2008.  The two are now locked into an epic battle known simply as “the durrrr challenge”.

The news may not come as a shock to poker followers, as it was hinted at by Phil Ivey previously.  It was also accidentally leaked before the official announcement when Full Tilt pictured Dwan as a host of one of the FTOPS tournaments.  The photo was taken down quickly but the gossip spread on the net and most of the damage was done.

The Team has released a short video on the Full Tilt website welcoming durrrr into the fold.  In it, they praise his dedication, determination, and aggressiveness on the tables and highlight his uncanny ability to make reads and make plays that other players aren’t able or willing to do.  Chris Ferguson mentions the fact that Dwan started his online poker career with a $40 deposit on Full Tilt and built that up to where he is today, playing the highest stakes available anywhere.  He did that all without ever losing his original $40 deposit.

Dwan has also gained recognition for his recent appearances on High Stakes Poker, as well as other poker television shows.  During the shows he continued his aggressive style of play and did quite well in live play versus some of the best poker players on the planet.

If you want to watch durrrr play online, he’s usually not difficult to find.  Just open the Full Tilt lobby, find the highest stakes no-limit Hold’em or pot-limit Omaha tables you can see and look for the name.  If you don’t play at Full Tilt, sign-up today!  You never know, Full Tilt Pros are known for occasionally sitting in on some of the low stakes tables to play and chat with the players.  You could get the chance to chat with and play against one of the most feared players in online poker today – and newest member of Team Full Tilt – Tom Dwan.

As is pretty standard in 6-max games the action was aplenty, despite the large buy-in.  Everyone was vying for the nice even $300,000 first place prize and of course the title of FTOPS Champion.  The Full Tilt Pros turned out in force, led by host Erick Lindgren. Erick is one of the more well-known “Red Pros” playing at Full Tilt.  He has one a World Series of Poker bracelet, 2 World Poker Tour Championships and has over $7 million in career tournament winnings.  He was joined by some other familiar faces, including Allen Cunningham, Bruce Buffer, David Pham, Huck Seed, Erica Shoenberg, Josh Arieh, and Jon Turner, a.k.a. PearlJammed, among others.

One of Full Tilt’s finest was able to make it very deep indeed in this tournament as Peter Feldman, a.k.a. Nordberg, made the final 2 tables, eventually going out in 9th place.  Feldman has won more than $1.1 million playing tournaments in his career, including cashing in the WSOP Main Event in 2006 and 2007.   He took down $20,250 for his time in Event #12, a very solid day.  The next best finish by one of Tilt’s Pros was Thomas Bihl, finishing 101st, who was just preceded by Josh Arieh, busting out in 103rd.

The final table was made up of some very tough customers.  Finishing in 6th place was hikkespett, a Norwegian player with some nice cashes to his name, but without the signature win to launch him in amongst the best players.

Fifth place went to Wretchy, real name Dan Martin.  Wretchy is one of the young, up and coming tournament players looking to break through with a big win.  He has a lot of very solid finishes and has taken down some great tournaments on both PokerStars and Full Tilt, but has yet to land the big fish so to speak.  He always seems to be around the final table though and it’s just a matter of time before his name sits atop a huge tournament payout list.

Finishing 4th was another big name in the tournament circuit, Shannon Shorr, who plays as BLUFFforRENT.  Shannon has over $3.2 million in tournament winnings, according to his blog at ShannonShorr.com.  He’s more well-known perhaps as a live tournament player than an online player, but one to be feared none the less.

Amak316 finished this tournament in 3rd place.  He is another solid tournament player with some serious wins and finishes, but without the huge score to propel him up the winnings leaderboards.

In second place was another young rising star in the tournament world.  Neverbluff67 is a solid tournament and lower stakes cash game player.  This second place finish and the prize money that comes along with it, will likely allow him to play some bigger games with a solid bankroll.  With that in mind there’s little doubt that we’ve heard the last from neverbluff67.

Finally, taking down 1st place was another very solid, if somewhat unknown player.  OmadJoped is a good heads-up and short-handed cash player and a solid tournament player.  This is his first really big score so it will be interesting to see where he goes from here.

1st – OmadJoped -$300,000

2nd – neverbluff67 – $198,000

3rd – amak316 – $138,300

4th – BLUFFforRENT – $105,000

5th – Wretchy – $72,750

6th – hikkespett – $49,500

Andrew Black played host to this event and was joined by 18 other Full Tilt Poker Pros, including Berry Johnston, David Pham, Huck Seed, and Scott Fischman.  The last pro standing was Ram Vaswani, a member of the famed Hendon Mob and the only player to reach the final table of 3 European Poker Tour events.

With such a nice prize pool there’s no doubt most players had their mind on the $141,771 first place prize.  When play got down to the final table, there was mostly unknown players and a couple of very good players left, as is fairly typical for these large events.  The two most well-known players, at least in Full Tilt tournament circles, were ProbBluffingYou (who also plays as ASPoker8 on PokerStars) and Doc Sands.

The action at the final table was pretty hectic, as players seemed unafraid to put all the money in the middle.  Doc Sands was eliminated in 5th place, taking down  $39,564 for the effort and solidifying his spot as one of the most feared players on Full Tilt.  His wins this year include the $30 rebuy ($9,127), the $1K Monday ($89,250), the $50 rebuy ($19,857.25), and the Nightly Hundred Grand at PokerStars ($19,514.40).  Oh, wait, that’s only since September!!  He also won the Sunday 500 on Stars in August ($90,097.20), FTOPS XII Event #10 for $259,440 in May, The Fifty-Fifty ($10,953.50) and Sunday Mulligan ($53,020) in April along with numerous other 1st place finishes and countless final tables.  In other words, he’s having a great year.

Outlasting them all though was Kiv56, who played heads-up with archwatcher for the title.  Archwatcher was probably the most active player at the table, as he had built up a relatively large stack and seemed willing to use it to his advantage.

Final table standings and payouts:

1st – Kiv56 – $141,771

2nd – archwatcher – $89,678.40

3rd – Ballzdeepx – $66,599.40

4th – ProbBluffingYou – $52,752

5th – Doc Sands – $39,564

6th – nomaddman – $28,354.20

7th – YrrsiN – $18,463.20

8th – Cowboy3362 – $13,188

9th – GoCubsGo969 – $9,231.60

Joining professional players such as Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, Peter Eastgate, Chad Brown and Vanessa Rousso, were stars from other parts of the world with enough money to play poker with the big boys and the amateurs with a dream.  If you played in the Main Event you may have held a virtual seat next to the likes of Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame, former pitching great Orel Hershiser, or former tennis superstar Boris Becker, as all three took their shot at the million dollar payday.

Unfortunately for the pros, Day 1 was not too kind, as all but one were among the 1,966 players eliminated by the end of the first day.  Only German PokerStars Pro Jan Heitmann remained, in 47th place.  He would end up going out in 141st place, collecting $13,936 for the effort.

Here’s the top 10 leaders in chips at the end of day 1:

1. TheMasterJ33 – 925,921 chips
2. pakd650 – 776,413 chips
3. 5902838181 – 734,682 chips
4. SexSeen – 696,659 chips
5. HEMIpowerSWT – 695,540 chips
6. GIVE_IT2 – 654,843 chips
7. Jovial Gent – 632,010 chips
8. reddeevil – 611,559 chips
9. GtRealGtOut – 580,712 chips
10. djk123 – 555,410 chips

Many of the leaders found it tough to stay on top throughout the day though as even the chip leader at the start of the day was gone fairly quickly.  TheMasterJ33 couldn’t make it past 87th place, but still took home $17,152.

A few of the Day 1 leaders did continue their good fortune, however. The final table featured 3 players who battled through day 2 to make it to the last 9 standing.  The chip leader was djk123, with over 12 million in chips.  Next was another survivor, Jovial Gent, with over 10 million in chips.  The remaining 7 players and their chip counts were:

Udon Wannit – 4,549,346
reddeevil – 4,222,220
Chong94 – 3,857,482
PeachyMer – 3,617,956
Xaston – 2,150,576
Supa4real – 1,004,760
Mudvaynes – 700,486

Eventually, it would come down to the final two players, Jovial Gent and Udon Wannit, with Gent holding a commanding 3 to 1 chip lead going into heads-up play.  His lead would hold as the players didn’t take long to get it in.  The final hand saw Jovial Gent flop 2 pair with K6 and Udon Wannit playing very aggressive with his pair of sixes and that was the end of the tournament and the end of another great WCOOP series.

Final table finish and payouts:

1st place: Jovial Gent – $1,715,200.00
2nd place: Udon Wannit – $1,286,400.00
3rd place: reddeevil – $933,712.00
4th place: djk123 – $643,200.00
5th place: Xaston – $482,400.00
6th place: Chong94 – $375,200.00
7th place: Mudvaynes – $268,000.00
8th place: Supa4real – $182,240.00
9th place: PeachyMer – $96,480.00

There was little doubt that plenty of the PokerStars Pros would make it for this one with a prize like that on the line.  The list of pros included Chris Moneymaker, Chad Brown, Jason Mercier, Vanessa Rousso, Elky – Bertrand Grospellier and Humberto Brenes.  The popular Costa Rican, Brenes, was the big winner of the pros.  However, he wont be retiring on his 239th place finish – a win of $474.50.

PokerStars tried to pump up the action and aggression in this tournament by collecting antes from the very first hand.  That meant that sitting around for the nuts would be tough, as the more aggressive players would just take pot after pot, building their stacks.  However, even with the “big antes”, it was over 14 hours until the final table bubble finally burst, sending the final nine to a very coveted position in a tournament such as this.  Even 9th place would be guaranteed over $5,800, but everyone was gunning for the 1st place prize of over $100k!

The top nine players held the following chip stacks heading into the final table:

Seat 1: 72good with 1,935,503 in chips
Seat 2: PokerProGG with 2,185,321 in chips
Seat 3: Raoeoiku with 866,555 in chips
Seat 4: JUNFI with 247,593 in chips
Seat 5: Artiecat with 859,772 in chips
Seat 6: vara33 with 3,227,438 in chips
Seat 7: Koln4ever with 4,886,063 in chips
Seat 8: Shark 00100 with 1,115,769 in chips
Seat 9: joeppiej with 2,925,986 in chips

After the long battle to get to the main stage, it only took about a half-hour for three players to be quickly eliminated.  Then things changed considerably, as the players slowed down a little.  This event started at 2:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday, but it wasn’t until early Thursday morning that play got down to three-handed.

When there were three, the players – Koln4ever, vara33, and PokerProGG, decided to discuss a deal.  The host of this tournament, PokerStars Pro Tom McEvoy, moderated the discussion and announced the final deal numbers to which the players agreed.  PokerStars had set a rule that $10,000 must be set aside for the eventual winner, but other than that, the players agreed that Koln4ever would get $98,282.70, vara33 would get $83,779.11, and PokerProGG would take $68,183.19.

vera33 would be the next eliminated, and thus probably most happy about the deal.  That put Koln4ever and PokerProGG heads-up, with Koln4ever have a dominating lead of over 16 million in chips to about 1.9 million for PokerProGG.  It didn’t take long for the final hand to come, as PokerProGG pushed with AK pre-flop and was called by the 33 of Koln4ever.  The board was no help to PokerProGG and he was eliminated in second place.  That left the $10,000 extra prize money as well as the title of WCOOP Champion to Koln4ever.

Final Table Results:

1st place: Koln4ever – $108,282.70 (after Final Table deal)
2nd place: PokerProGG – $68,183.19 (after FT deal)
3rd place: vara33 – $83,779.11 (after FT deal)
4th place: Shark 00100 – $41,975.00
5th place: joeppiej – $31,025.00
6th place: Raoeoiku – $23,725.00
7th place: Artiecat – $16,425.00
8th place: 72good – $9,125.00
9th place: JUNFI – $5,840.00

While other converters can take a raw hand history and turn it into something that can be posted on forums around the web, what makes this converter different is the animated gif that accompanies the converted history.  Not only does this give people the option to read the history, but to actually see the hand go down, play-by-play.  This often will give viewers the most insight into the hand, because they’ll be able to follow the action more closely.

Here’s an example of just what the hand converter can do.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $2.00 BB (8 handed) – Poker-Stars Replayer from Poker Hands Replayer

MP2 ($200)
CO ($93)
Button ($94)
SB ($449.85)
BB ($132.10)
Hero (UTG) ($200)
UTG+1 ($180)
MP1 ($200)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with A, A
Hero bets $8, 5 folds, SB calls $7, BB calls $6

Flop: ($24) J, 4, Q (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $18, 1 fold, BB calls $18

Turn: ($60) 7 (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $44, BB calls $44

River: ($148) 8 (2 players)
BB bets $62.10 (All-In), Hero calls $62.10

Total pot: $272.20 | Rake: $3

As you can see, the animated gif makes it easy to follow the hand from start to finish.  Additionally, for those who do not like the gif, the short, easy to read converted history gives viewers the option of reading the hand that way instead.  Either way, the new hand history converter from PokerHandsReplayer.com is a great alternative for converting hands from just about all the major sites.  That includes PokerStars, Full Tilt, Party Poker, Absolute, Ultimate Bet, Everest, the Ongame Network sites, Cake Poker, and many more.  It can also convert hand histories saved by Hold’em Manager and Poker Tracker.

Hands can also be converted for use on all the major poker forums, making it easy to post your hands and get advice.  Some of the popular formats supported by Poker Hands Replayer are  2+2, Flop Turn River, Pocket 5′s, CardRunners, and Full Contact Poker, among others.  This tool will also convert hands for use on websites or blogs, so you can keep everyone up to date on your game and recent hands.

For more information or to try the hand converter for free, just go to PokerHandsReplayer.com and plug in some hands.  There’s no doubt you will enjoy how easy it is to convert hands and the unique animated gif as a result!

Amazingly, despite so many players the action quickly eliminated a huge portion of the field.  Within 2 hours, the original 15,000 + entrants had been whittled down to less than 3,500 players.

Going into the final table, two players held a pretty sizable lead over the other 7 players.  Both vakAAttack and DonLeu had over 10 million in chips, while the next nearest player had just over 6.7 million.

At the final table, the action continued to be fast and furious as the 9th place player, Dwayno86, lasted just one orbit before being eliminated.  The all-ins didn’t slow down much from there, and when the dust settled, the final two players, vakAAttack and DHUSTLER15 went heads-up very close in chip counts.

The two battled for a couple of levels before the final hand.  It was a final hand that was about as sick as it gets to finish a tournament.

With blinds at 225k and 450k, DHUSTLER15 raises the button to 1 million and is called by vakAAttack.  The flop comes Kc, 8h, 7s, and both players check.  The turn brings the 7c, and again, both players check.  Then the river brings the Qh and things suddenly get interesting.  vakAAttack leads out for 5.4 million, which is more than twice the pot at this point.  DHUSTLER15 then shoves his remaining stack of just over 15 million and is snap called by vakAAttack.

DHUSTLER15 gladly shows QdQc for a rivered full boat.  His euphoria is short lived though, as vakAAttack turns over 7h7d for quads and the win in the largest WCOOP event ever.

Here’s your final table and payouts:

1st – vakAAttack – $183,334.81

2nd – DHUSTLER15 – $133,237.51

3rd – merkurstar – $101,887.51

4th – DonLeu – $70,537.51

5th – razorbite – $54,862.51

6th – THOR12345 – $39.187.51

7th – Rockkaholic – $26,647.51

8th – Percussion – $14,107.51

9th – Dwayno98 – $9,405.01