Andy Bloch was on hand to host Full Tilt’s Online Poker Series Event #20. No-limit Hold’em was the game and 2,803 players paid the $216 to join-in on the fun. This created a prize pool of $560,600, easily eclipsing the $400,000 guarantee.
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