Hosting Event #33 was James Akenhead who you probably remember from 2009′s November Nine. The London native also finished runner-up at a $1500 2008 WSOP Event, earning over $500,000. He has amassed $2.7 million in career earnings. Unfortunately, his head was left achin’ when he exited from MiniFTOPS Event 33 in 1122nd place.

Several Full Tilt Pros managed to make the money as it appeared the rebuys left them with deep stacks, allowing the pros to leverage their skill against the field. 1996 WSOP Main Event Huck Seed bested all the Red Pros and most of the field before being eliminated in 21st position. In total, Seed owns 4 WSOP bracelets and has accumulated nearly $6 million in career winnings. In addition to his poker prowess, Seed is a bit of a prop bettor. Two of his most famous wagers were when he pledged not to shave for a year and the time he said he could stand in ocean water up to his shoulders for 18 hours. Not surprisingly, Seed lost both.

Seed may have lost, but that means someone, just like you, won Event 33. When it down to the final two, TheSaVVyBean and slowrollin78, both decided to make a deal. After the two agreed to a deal, TheSaVVyBean knocked out slowrollin78 for the championship and $67,000 top prize. For his efforts, slowrollin78 collected $60,000.

Finishing in third place was Gavin ‘gavb31′ Ball. Hailing from Liverpool, the talented player collected over $33,000 and inched his way closer to the $1 million winnings mark. Finishing in 6th place was talented stakee and staker zekenasty. Now, he has over $100,000 profit at Full Tilt Poker.

MiniFTOPSXVIII is over, but we’ll see you again for the 19th installment of MiniFTOPS. Until then, good luck at the tables!

1.) TheSaVVyBean – $67,108
2.) slowrollin78 – $59,592
3.) gavb31 – $33,496
4.) xAlyssa -$24,247
5.) tookUrNotes – $17,377
6.) zekenasty – $11,719
7.) allison1995 – $8,082
8.) chunkOFlove – $5,658
9.) tukome – $4,041

Hosting the two-day event was Full Tilt Pro Erick Lindgren. Lindgren is a very successful tournament poker player whose career winnings exceed $7,400,000. During his career he has earned two WPT titles and won a WSOP bracelet in 2008. In that same year, Lindgren was named WSOP player of the year after he cashed in five events and won $1,348,528 in prize money.

Many other Full Tilt Red Pros joined Lindgren in the event, including Lindgren’s girlfriend Erica Shoenberg, former WSOP Main Event Champion Carlos Mortensen, four-time bracelet winner Huck Seed as well as many others. Only two pros placed well enough to cash, though. Adam Shoenfeld finished in 101st place, taking home $771.33. Friend of Full Tilt Eunjong Byun faired a bit better, finishing in 44th and winning  $1,616.12.

The winner of the two-day event was ThePateychuk. He outlasted many tough opponents through two long days of poker to take down the tournament and a prize of $146,920! The score was by far the biggest of the Russian’s online poker career. Before the tournament, ThePateychuk had only amassed around $4,000 in tournament winnings, so this was a giant boost to his ROI!

Congratulations to all those who cashed in Event 29 and in all the tournaments throughout MiniFTOPS XVIII. Here are the results from the final table:

Full Tilt Poker MiniFTOPS XVIII Event 29 ($200+16 NLHE, $600,000 Guaranteed)
3,673 Entrants; $734,600 prize pool

1.  ThePateychuk — $146,920.00
2. Aminita Love — $92,599.60
3. AA POKORHAN AA — $67,583.20
4. drgulogulo — $50,687.40
5. SharkInTheWater — $35,260.80
6. rakeinfools — $23,507.20
7. swish3113 — $15,389.87
8.  Method9999 — $10,284.40
9. Sly Zim 24 — $7,346.00

Every few months Full Tilt Poker hosts a Full Tilt Online Poker Series, which offers a variety of tournaments in differing games and formats with fantastic guaranteed prize pools. Not everyone can afford entry to these tournaments, and so Full Tilt came up with the idea of MiniFTOPS, which is held a short time after each FTOPS concludes, and features exactly the same range of events, but at one tenth the buy-in. The guaranteed prize pools don’t shrink by nearly so much as the buy-ins, making these tournaments very worthwhile for all players, whether on a tight budget or not.

While there was a great variety of innovative tournaments throughout the series, the Main Event was, unsurprisingly, a very traditional No Limit Hold’Em Superstack format with a slow structure, spreading the event over fourteen hours. The one million dollar guarantee was easily met thanks to 16,910 people showing up to register for the event, and their $75+$5 buy-ins were enough to generate a final prize pool of $1,183,700 spread between the top 2,160 players, with first place receiving a massive $177,555.

As part of their marketing promotion that Full Tilt Poker is the site where one can learn, chat and play with the pros, Full Tilt provides a host for every FTOPS and MiniFTOPS event, who is either a Full Tilt Pro or some other Full Tilt celebrity. The Main Event was hosted by none other than Jennifer Harman, who almost all poker fans will know thanks to her numerous appearances on television poker shows, including GSN’s High Stakes Poker. Harman is the proud holder of two World Series of Poker Bracelets and has over two million in lifetime tournament winnings. She put in a very strong showing in the MiniFTOPS Main Event before eventually being eliminated in 191st place for $520.83.

There was well over $550,000 in prize money allocated to the final table alone, and even after four people had been eliminated that number was still in excess of $475,000. With so much money up for grabs, the final five decided that they would come to a deal, and a chop was agreed upon. Full Tilt requires that players play out a tournament even if a deal is made, so that there can be one definite title holder, but the chop assured that even after this was played out the players all walked away with pay-days ranging from $75,000 to nearly $120,000. When the dust settled, it was frra87 who won the title and received the largest share of the cash, a very respectable $118,807.87 for his troubles.

With the end of the Main Event also came the end of an extremely successful MiniFTOPS. While in the past there have occasionally been troubles with the tournament guarantees being too high in online tournament series, there seemed to be little problem for MiniFTOPS XVIII, with tournaments enjoying a great turn-out. Full Tilt doesn’t hold back and hosts such series roughly every three months, so even if you missed out on the fun this time around keep your ear to the ground and you won’t have long to wait.

The final 6 players were Tiltoholic, CptnSpalding, TimWakefield, TheMoneyShot10, da_professional, and jiaOmoney. Tiltoholic came into the final table as one of the smaller stacks but played well and survived, getting down to heads up before rallying to make take the chip lead and the title.

All in preflop was the name of the game at the final table. The first four players who were knocked got all the chips in preflop; big flip after big flip made for a fun sweat. The final table went by super quick, with the big stacks winning almost all of the all in preflop flips. Boom, boom, boom, players got knocked out in rapid succession.

Here are the key hands from the final table:

With 6 players left and with blinds at 250K/500K, 60K ante, jiaOmoney ships all in preflop with Q9, TimWakefield calls with 99 and fades over cards for the win, taking his stack to 10.2 million.

With 5 players left da_professional  goes all-in from the small blind with 77 for 3.69 million to get called by CptnSpalding in the bb with QJ off, CptSpalding hits his queen to take the pot and bring his stack to 51 million.

With 4 players left TheMoneyShot10 ships all in on the button with Q10. CptnSpalding calls in the BB with A9 and holds for the win to get his stack to 60 million.

With 3 players remaining and blinds still at 250K-500K, Tim Wakefield gets it all in preflop with K10 vs tiltoholics 99 and fails to improve, leaving it heads up CptnSpalding vs Tiltoholic.

CptnSpalding went into heads up with a 56 million stack versus 32 million for Tiltoholic. 1^st and second were originally 52,684 and 35,137, they agree to a deal where CptnSpalding received 44,467, Tiltoholic got 40,353 and they played for the remaining 3k and the jersey.

The deciding hand heads up: Tiltoholic and CptnSpalding got it all in on a flop of 3d 5s 2d. CptnSpalding tabled Qd6d versus Jd5d for Tiltoholic who also had a pair to go with his flush draw. Board came down 3d 5s 2d 3c 9s and a pair of 5′s mean that Tiltoholic is our miniFTOPS event #32 champion!

Final table payouts.

1. Tiltoholic           $43,353.56
2. CptnSpalding      $44,467
3. TimWakefield      $24,489
4. TheMoneyShot10 15,793
5. da_professional  $10,115
6. jiaOmoney              $6,991

The Mini Full Tilt Online Poker Series, or MiniFTOPS as it is known, is a series of tournaments with small buy-ins and large guaranteed prize pools. The series always follows a short time after its associated FTOPS, and it offers all the same tournaments as the major series but at one tenth the buy-in. While the buy-ins are shrunk dramatically, the effect on the guaranteed prize pools is much less severe, making these events great tournaments to play for skilled players on a budget.

Event 27 was probably one of the quickest tournaments in the MiniFTOPS lineup, kicking off at 5pm on December 17th and coming to a close less than three hours later. While 3,415 players registered for the $52+$3 tournament, it was the knockout and super-turbo format, combined with the fact that players only received three hundred chips to start, that caused this tournament to play out so quickly. Each knockout was worth $12, and with stacks so short it was very possible for players to make their buy-in back with a bit of aggressive pay and some help from lady luck.

FTOPS events are always hosted by a prominent member of the Full Tilt family, and MiniFTOPS shares this tradition. Event 27 was hosted by James Bord, who has amassed over $1.5 Million in career tournament earnings in his short poker career. He is without question best known for his excellent performance at the World Series of Poker Europe this year, where he outlasted the entire field to become Main Event champion, earning a gold bracelet. He was not to repeat his performance on the virtual felt this time, being eliminated in 1010th place.

Fortunes were somewhat more favorable for makar0101 and 4nd1, who found themselves sitting across from each other at the final table, after a relatively short but brutal tournament. With 4nd1 having the chip lead, the two agreed upon a chop, and proceeded to play out the remainder of the tournament for a percentage of the prize pool set aside and the title, as Full Tilt requires. Although 4nd1 had the chip advantage at the time the deal was made, makar0101 was able to turn the tables and eventually become the victor. While makar0101 received the title and $21,360.04 for his win, the chop still favored 4nd1, who walked away with $23,444.76 for his eventual second place finish.

Time is fast running out to get in on your share of the MiniFTOPS prize pools, but if you hurry then you may still be in with a shot. It’s awesome to see this kind of a series which such a wide variety of formats and tournaments, and of course even more awesome that it can all be put on with such low buy-ins. Even if the buy-ins still seem a little bit out of your budget, Full Tilt has satellite tournaments running pretty much around the clock, meaning there’s no excuse for you to miss out on your share of all the cash up for grabs.

Roy Winston, a physician turned poker professional hosted MiniFTOPS Event #22. Winston has seen the most success on the World Poker Tour. In 2007, Dr. Winston took down WPT Borgata, winning over $1.5 million. He also made a deep run in the 2007 WSOP Main Event, outlasting most of the field until he exited in 26th position. Winston couldn’t get it going in the $30+$3 Event 22 and finished in 1999th.

MiniFTOPS Event 22 was a tournament that Full Tilt Red Pros would like to forget. Out of the 14 members of Team Full Tilt who registered, only one, Eunjong Byun, made the money. Byun is a former Starcraft Pro who retired in 2008 after amassing $300,000 in winnings. On December 14, Byun won nearly $60,000 with a third place finish in Full Tilt Poker’s $1k Monday tournament. Look out for this South Korean pro as he is getting better and better each tournament he plays.

It took nearly 12 hours, but when the dust settled, one man was left standing: croll103. James ‘croll103′ Carroll is an absolute tournament beast with almost $2 million in career winnings across Full Tilt, PokerStars, and Cereus. This $63,000 score is second to his $80,000 victory in a PokerStars WCOOP Event. Carroll has been absolutely crushing the online tournament scene in 2010 Q4 and we wish him the best as we head into 2011. Congrats Jason!

The runner-up, BluffMag, is rumored to be Eddy Kleid, co-owner of Bluff Magazine. He is a solid tournament player and this $40,000 score is his biggest to date on Full Tilt Poker.

Third place finisher Bryan ‘bparis’ Paris is another well-known online professional who has racked up over $2.5 million in cashes on Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars. Earlier this year, he won The Sunday Brawl on Full Tilt Poker. USCPhildo finished in fourth position and this big cash helps as him approach the $3 million mark in online tournament winnings.

MiniFTOPS will end with a bang on Sunday, December 19th with the $1,000,000 Main Event. Good luck!

FullTilt MiniFTOPS XVIII Event #22 ($33 Rebuy/Add-on)
3,146 Entrants; $321,630 prize pool
1.) croll103 – $63,225
2.) BluffMag – $39,946
3.) bparis – $27,403
4.) USCphildo – $20,906
5.) clickitbackftw – $14,795
6.) MattVegasPwn – $9,971

The host of Event 26 was Gabriela Hill, the most recognized poker ambassador in Latin America. She started her career on television in Mexico where she hosted children’s programs. After moving to Texas, she became the first female Spanish-speaking sports reporter in the U.S. Since then, her career has taken off. She announced the WSOP Main Event final table in Latin America between 2004 and 2008, and then she was the host of Poker After Dark: Director’s Cut.

It comes as no surprise that this event surpassed the guarantee. 9,879 people participated, creating a prize pool of $197,580 with $31,751.11 for 1st place. Pascal Perrault was the highest finishing Full Tilt Pro. He placed 306th and received $86.94 for his efforts.

Here were the stacks going into the final table:

–ANAL_NATSHA– had almost 2/3 of the chips in play! And so the players faced the tough prospect of doubling up and hopefully wearing –ANAL_NATSHA– down in the process. It took a relatively long time for the first final table bust to occur. –ANAL_NATSHA– did a fair amount of blind stealing, although icyheat also won some pots and increased his chip stack.

Finally proplayer233 got down to less than 5bb and was forced to make a move. He pushed all-in with QJ and got called by blirreh in the big blind:

Proplayer233 flopped a flush draw but blirreh turned a boat, so he busted in 6th place for $4,149.18.

Play continued 5-handed and –ANAL_NATSHA– went back to his blind stealing ways. Blirreh managed to chip up a bit through him, winning a 2 million pot with the blinds at 100k/200k. The very next hand, though, –ANAL_NATSHA– got it all back. –ANAL_NATSHA– made his usual raise on the button with 88 and 4-bet jammed over blirreh when 3-bet. The two were off to the races!

–ANAL_NATSHA–’s hand held and blirreh busted in 5th place for $6,332.56.

At this point Austin01010 was getting very short, and he was able to double up through dudefish23. Blind changes meant that he was still under 5bb, though, so the very next hand he shoved with AT:

Austin01010 was yet another victim to –ANAL_NATSHA–’s huge stack despite getting it in as a favorite. He busted in 4th place for $9,879.00.

This latest win for –ANAL_NATSHA– meant that he had almost 80% of the chips in play! Icyheat decided that this could not stand, however, so he took matters into his own hands. The very next hand he 3-bet a steal blind versus blind and called a 4-bet shove:

One has to wonder why –ANAL_NATSHA– made that shove for it certainly seems unnecessary with a hand as weak as T7. Icyheat wasn’t complaining, though! This pot meant that dudefish23 was the obvious short stack 3-handed.

Play continued and icyheat’s stack grew. He won pots off –ANAL_NATSHA– both preflop and post flop, getting up to 70bb. Just as soon as it seemed like he was inching closer to –ANAL_NATSHA–’s stack, though, –ANAL_NATSHA– got into a pot with dudefish23 and eliminated yet another player:

In the above pot, –ANAL_NATSHA– called a 3-bet preflop and dudefish pushed the flop. Unfortunately for dudefish –ANAL_NATSHA– hit top pair and busted him in 3rd place for an impressive consolation prize of $14,917.29.

And so heads-up play began with –ANAL_NATSHA– possessing 70% of the chips in play. Icyheat did ok at first, but soon –ANAL_NATSHA– wore him down and he got quite short. Never one to give up, he battled back and after a variety of 3-bet and 4-bet pots, he ended up doubling back up to pretty much his heads-up starting stack after 5-bet jamming with AK and beating –ANAL_NATSHA–’s A2.

That was as far as icyheat would go, however. Icyheat called a raise preflop and ended up getting his stack in on the turn with a gutshot and flush draw, but he could not hit:

Icyheat busted in 2nd place for a cool $20,785.42. Congratulations to –ANAL_NATSHA– for winning Event 26 for $31,751.11! He absolutely dominated, entering the final table as the chip leader and emerging the winner when it was all said and done. His previous largest cash on Full Tilt was just last week for $3,496 in a $5 rebuy, so this should significantly boost his bankroll!

MiniFTOPS XVIII finishes up this weekend, but there are plenty more tournaments to play before then. Be sure to come back to FTR for more MiniFTOPS coverage in the days to come!

In the end, it was jorgisjelis taking home the largest chunk of the cash, with a reward of nearly $27,000 — that’s a lot of money to earn in only a few hours, especially considering the buy-in of just $22.

As has so often been the case in the current MiniFTOPS running, this event outpaced its guarantee. Full Tilt had ensured a total of $125,000, but thanks to a registering body of 6,937, Event 24 beat its projection by nearly $14,000 to wind up at $138,740. At only $20+$2 per seat, this proved to be a major haul for the upper-level finishers.

Here’s how the final table turned out:

#1 – jorgisjelis ($26,987.71)
#2 – Luther 1903 ($16,510.06)
#3 – Palming_77 ($11,654.16)
#4 – elan4501 ($9,324.40)
#5 – The_Dr_Bet ($5,965.82)
#6 – zzzash ($4,023.46)
#7 – apriori 1986 ($2,774.80)
#8 – Galwaylegend08 ($1,942.36)
#9 – lazarlazar ($1,387.40)

The top 720 participants received a return on their investment, with the minimum payout weighing in at $38.85; just enough to fill up the gas tank of a small economy car. Host Steve Wong notched the highest finisher by a Full Tilt Pro, ending his run in 144th place ($91.57). Lee Watkinson continued to find his way into the MiniFTOPS money, earning $77.70 with a 184th place elimination.

After those two, however, the closest a pro got to sniffing a payday was Scott Clements, who was knocked out in 847th. Other notable finishers included Svetlana Gromenkova (1,321st), Jon Turner (2,155th), Chip Jett (2,308th), Hulya Pehlivan (2,550th), and Ferrari Zumbini (2,887th).

The host of the tournament was none other than Queens, New York native, Cyndy Violette. She moved to Las Vegas when she was 12-years old and began playing card games with her uncle on the kitchen table. When she was old enough to do so, Cyndy worked at a casino as a blackjack and poker dealer. In 1984, she would turn pro with money that she won from a Lake Tahoe poker tournament. Soon after, she won a Seven-Card Stud tournament for $74,000 — the largest sum of money ever won by a woman at the time. In 2004, she won a World Series of Poker bracelet fulfilling a dream of hers. She wasn’t able to recreate the same success in Event 19 and finished in 923rd place.

The Silver Jersey and $20,988 cash prize was finally awarded to 25baseball25 after six hours and 43 minutes of tournament play. THE__D__RY would have to settle for runner-up and a $12,592.80 prize. The rest of the final table panned out as follows:

1st – 25baseball25 – $20,998
2nd – THE__D__RY – $12,592.80
3rd – vicmoney214 – $8,522.40
4th – candi2679 – $6,741.60
5th – BIGOne_FFM – $5,088
6th – daydreaminboy – $3,816
7th – Tyresias – $2,798.40
8th – LOL – WP – $1,908
9th – crackuup – $1,208.40

It was fitting, in a series progressing at such a breakneck speed, that Event #18 utilized Full Tilt’s unique Rush Poker format. Introduced earlier this year, Rush Poker keeps every player constantly in the action by switching them to a new table each time they fold a hand. It has proved incredibly popular with new and established players alike. Poker generally involves a lot of downtime, as you watch your opponent’s play out a hand. With this new format, you can discard your rags and have another hand ready for you immediately.

The format made a successful appearance in the most recent FTOPS and its equivalent MiniFTOPS tournament proved just as popular. Event #18 was a No Limit Hold’em Super Turbo contest, with players starting with just 300 chips. The $100,000 guarantee was an enticing prospect for plenty of potential combatants, so much so that the combined $22 + $2 buy-ins surpassed Full Tilt’s promised contribution. The $116,020 prize pool was shared between 558 players, with a top prize in the region of $23,000.

The tournament was hosted by Brazilian pro Felipe ‘Mojave’ Ramos. The Pot Limit Omaha expert was a slightly odd choice to host this Texas Hold’em Rush Poker tournament, but, being of relatively low status on the Full Tilt team, hosting any MiniFTOPS event is about the best he can hope for. He only managed to last until 2997th place, but can console himself with the knowledge that he has two PLO WSOP final tables to his name, as well as around $500,000 in live tournament winnings.

A decent number of his Red Pro compatriots turned out to compete in Event #18, including two who managed to cash. It must be in Aaron Bartley’s contract that he is legally required to be in the money in every FTOPS event. Once again he made a profit in Full Tilt’s marquee series, finishing in 320th place. He was outdone by Lee Watkinson, who topped the Red Pro rankings in 298th.

Rush Poker tournaments tend to fly by. It didn’t even take 2.5 hours to complete the entire event, let alone reach the final table. The final 9 in a Rush Poker event plays just the same as the end of any regular tournament, but with the adrenaline of the non-stop hands still coursing through your veins, it can be difficult to adjust to the more sedate style of play. Making the transition most successfully was thatwright, who picked up the $23,000 first prize. Just behind him in second and third respectively were adofpoker67 and Tequila976.

The final table payouts in full were as follows:

1st thatwright ($22,971,96)
2nd adofpoker67 ($14,096.43)
3rd Tequila976 ($10,205.12)
4th Highcheck ($7,193.24)
5th InspectClouseau ($5,2200.90)
6th Frenzy09 ($3,480.60)
7th UrOut13 ($2,320.40)
8th MKAPHO73 ($1,624.28)