Yesterday will undoubtedly go down as one of the biggest Sundays of the year, as FTOPS culminated with not one, not two, but three events! On top of that, Poker Stars had their usual majors, and to top it all off, one of FTR’s own took down the $5k Freezeout on Poker Stars!

FTOPS VIII culminated with its Main Event, a $500+$35, 2 Million Guarantee. 4,750 players showed up, all in search of a $400k plus score, inflating the prize pool upwards of $2.4 million. It took about eleven hours, but after all of that, Keith “cheesemonster” Lehr took it down for $410,780. Keith has a World Series of Poker Bracelet from 2003, when he took down a $3k Pot Limit Hold ‘Em event for $225,040. En route to taking down this prestigious event, he took out Jason “strassa2” Strassa, who is widely regarded as an extremely brilliant player. Kudos to Lehr for this amazing achievement.

1. cheesemonster: $410,780
2. MarMoss: $249,375
3. SLmelonman: $161,500
4. frostey: $125,875
5. Dwarf: $95,000
6. R3dL0bster: $71,250
7. kiwid10: $54,625
8. awriver: $41,563
9. strassa2: $30,875

Event #21 also culminated yesterday, which was the $2.5k, two-day event. 899 of the toughest players in the world showed up to this event, and some extremely stiff competition showed up at the table. TheStein, Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko, ckingusc, IfHeDiesHeDies, and Halfrek all made this final table quite interesting. This was Halfrek’s second final table of FTOPS VIII, fresh off his huge victory in Event #11, a $1k event, where he took it down for $343k. Despite all of this stacked talent at the final table, Halfrek was able to do the unthinkable and take this event down, and in the process he has had one of the most amazing weeks in the history of online poker. Not only did he take down two insanely tough fields, but also in the process he netted a cool $860k. Not bad for 3 days work. Rumors have been flying as to the identity of Halfrek, as some rumors have identified Halfrek as Phillip Hilm, who final tabled the World Series of Poker Main Event just last year.

1. Halfrek: $516,925
2. JRShaffy: $325,888
3. IfHeDiesHeDies: $241,606
4. philivey567: $185,419
5. binrich: $140,469
6. ckingusc: $101,138
7. TheStein: $67,425
8. lilfishy897: $52,592
9. Hoss_TBF: $38,208

The third and final FTOPS event of the day was Event #23. This more or less filled in for the Sunday Brawl, but with a change. Instead of the standard 9 player tables, it was a 6-max event. Other than that, everything was the same, as it was a still a $240+$16 buy-in. 3,149 players showed up for Event #23, with the guarantee set at $500k, but shattering it by nearly $130k. At the end of it all, elheroe bested the field, and took away $124,020 for the effort.

1. elheroe: $124,020
2. Panamatony: $78,221
3. MrGreaseFire: $58,659
4. I R Teh Donk: $40,937
5. TheAdam8: $28,971
6. princetendee: $19,524

The Sunday Million on Poker Stars saw the turnout jump up above 7,000 people once again this week, ending up with 7,112 players forking over $200+$15 in hopes of being the one to take an amazing six figure score down. Kared69 grinded away the competition, and won it with no chop, meaning a $200k score.

1. kared69: $200,558
2. etushekki: $100,990
3. bestbuy82: $71,120
4. Stefano/Zio: $56,896
5. KILLER ACE: $42,672
6. draqq: $31,293
7. traction1: $22,047
8. Genius005ca: $12,802
9. perezj234: $8,392

As I mentioned before, the $5k Winner-Take-All Freezeout on Poker Stars was won by one FTR’s own this week, as Ben “sauce123” Sulsky played an amazing tournament, including coming back from a 10-1 chip deficit heads-up against Cory “UGOTPZD” Carroll, who is fresh off his recent WPT Season 6 World Championship final table. Congrats to sauce123 for outlasting the 14 other players, and taking it down for $75k.

The Sunday Mulligan was the final big money tournament of the day on Full Tilt Poker. The $200+$16 tournament saw 1,104 players come out, making first place nearly $50k. Like7 was the eventual winner.

1. like7: $49,680
2. MrsSmokey1: $31,464
3. gadgeteer: $23,294
4. DroneMan84: $18,216
5. swool: $13,800
6. RoxmorE: $9,936
7. tuna_fish_tank: $6,624
8. Magistr Spb: $4,968
9. FlintSky: $3,533

The Sunday Warmup on Poker Stars saw a deal forged heads-up, between rubentrv and long time tournament pro, Sooners. After it was all said and done, rubentrv was the winner, walking way with $87,063.

1. rubenrtv: $87,063
2. Sooners: $83,500
3. Boateng: $41,398
4. dimmmmi1: $32,700
5. twosips: $25,637
6. Sircall: $18,966
7. Big_Col11: $13,734
8. mackerel t: $8,633
9. XLR8: $5,101

The Sunday Second Chance on Poker Stars saw a table full of talent, as it was filled with all players from the United States, save for ViP_MoDee who finished second. QuasiFiction, MrSmokey1, and WiscoMurray have all had great success in tournaments, especially Steve “MrSmokey1” Billirakis, who is the youngest World Series of Poker bracelet winner, ever. Those three players fell short at the final table, finishing 6th, 7th, and 8th respectively.

1. S_System: $49,105
2. ViP_MoDee: $36,374
3. jdawg217: $27,980
4. Pitbull24: $20,985
5. patriotsjh: $14,690
6. QuasiFiction: $11,892
7. MrSmokey1: $9,094
8. WiscoMurray: $6,296
9. Livin on Luk: $3,917

Rounding out the tournaments this week is the Bodog 100k Guaranteed. The field shrunk again this week, down to 708 players each putting up $100+$9, creating a $29,200 overlay. Panicked was the winner, taking away $23,600.

1. Panicked: $23,600
2. JohnnyGstaks: $13,600
3. cbayly12: $9,100
4. toddc: $7,000
5. evanholdswor: $5,700
6. Padfoot: $4,500
7. AlfRoberts: $3,300
8. nash07: $2,200
9. zdepew2000: $1,300

And that’s all, after this historic weekend. Congratulations to everyone who hit it big this weekend, and once again, congratulations to sauce123 for taking down the $5k Freezeout!