Poker is nothing if not resilient. Whether it be on the back streets of Texas or ethereal internet avenues, the game just keeps on trucking. Full Tilt is currently battling indictments in the U.S., having withdrawn their custom for that nation’s citizens, but nothing stops their flagship FTOPS event.
The Full Tilt Online Poker Series XX is not quite the majestic affair it was a few months ago, but still shows considerable growth from its inauspicious beginnings. The guaranteed prize pool has dropped almost $10 million compared to the previous series, but the remaining $12.5 million is nothing to be sniffed at.
$150,000 of that was earmarked for Event #26, but it looks like Full Tilt underestimated the popularity of the event in the wake of Black Friday. The total number of entrants was 985, building the prize pool to $197,000.
Even with smaller fields, you wouldn’t expect an FTOPS event to end in just 2.5 hours. Seasoned poker detectives will smell something fishy and indeed the format for Event #26 was one that encouraged speedy play. This No Limit Hold ’em tournament had a Turbo clock, forcing the levels to whip by at an electric pace.
Not that it will have affected the players all that much. The Rush Poker format means that they are able to get in more hands per hour than in a regular event. Full Tilt’s own unique invention, Rush Poker moves players to a new table to be dealt a new hand as soon as they fold their cards.
Although the American pros were noticeably absent, a handful of worldwide Team Full Tilt members turned out to try their luck in Event #26. As it happened, there wasn’t much luck to go around for the beleaguered Red Pros. The likes of Caio Pimenta, Dave Colclough, and James Dempsey all failed to cash.
The player who finished most impressively was innocuous232, known as Nathan to his 35 Twitter followers. He picked up $45,310 for his efforts, just ahead of isinm2006 in 2nd and logano27 in 3rd.
Final table payouts for FTOPS XX Event #26 were as follows:
1 innocuous232 $45,310.00
2 isinm2006 $28,565.00
3 logano27 $21,177.50
4 xxxMac3xxx $16,252.50
5 Sonya00 $12,312.50
6 caytanya $8,865.00
7 wyyteeee $5,910.00
8 OnZi1 $4,609.80