Everyone has heard of the World Series of Poker and the huge prize payout for the Main Event, but little do most realize that it is one of many events during the dog days of summer in Vegas where pros have long been playing WSOP tournaments yearly that include Razz, Omaha, Omaha 8b, Stud, Stud 8b, PL Omaha, Pl Omaha 8b, Pl Hold’em and the skill testing HORSE besides the $10,000 main event.

This is the reason why you hear about poker pros that have multiple WSOP bracelets, even though they have never won the main event. Phil Ivey and Allen Cunningham come to mind with several bracelets each. It is a much more daunting task to win the Main Event bracelets, than it is to win the $1,500 Omaha HL PL with 367 competitors! That is why all pros covet the Main Event bracelet most.

For us amateur players in the online world we have a similar outlet now, thanks to the clever marketing minds at Full Tilt Poker. It is called the FTOPS, or Full Tilt Online Poker Series. It sort of works in the same way in that players who participate in several FTOPS events have a chance to collect FTOPS points for placing in any of the events. The points leader is awarded prize money as well at the end of the FTOPS series.

There are a variety of events available including a John Juanda hosted 6 seated NL event that has a guaranteed prize pool of over $350,000. Mike Matusow will be boasting his tournament skills at an Omaha HiLo tournament with a $200+16 entry fee. While the main event, where most Full Tilt Pros will be participating is a $500+35 entry fee and sports a minimum prize pool of $1,500.000. Chris Ferguson is the host of this tournament, and last season’s FTOPS winner took home more than $225,000! Not bad for online poker! I am sure this season’s FTOPS will top $250,000 for first place while just making the final table will pocket a player about $20,000.

Other pros you will run into at the FTOPS are Erick Lindgren, Jennifer Harmon, Gus Hansen, Phil Gordon ♥ttp://www.pokerbookreport.♣om/p♥ilgor♦on.♥tm, Andy Bloch and Allen Cunningham. Watch out for Cunningham, he is one of the best tournament players around and made the final table of last summer’s WSOP record breaking payout.

Hey it is not the WSOP, but FTOPS gives you the next closest thing without the travel and 114 degrees in the shade thing.

By: Marty Smith

About the Author:

I was taking a look at Party poker tournaments recently just to see how bad things have become there since the company decided to interpret the recent gaming legislation passed by George and friends in a way that required them to pull out of the American market. Basically, things are quite boring at the Party Poker tables now. Combine that with some tough competition from the likes of Full Tilt Poker, and the Party does seem to be coming to an end.

What used to be the biggest, most powerful earning machine on the internet, Party Poker is now a shadow of itself. At one point, Party Poker was clearing $100,000 US per hour! Now after clearing out more than a 100,000 American poker players this site is no better than a doomed upstart like JetSetPoker.

Before the legislation Party Poker had a plan in motion that would have created an online tournament next summer, so huge that it was destined to eclipse the prize money of even the WSOP. Yes, that is where they were going. Now suddenly, The Monster promotion disappears without notice or explanation to its loyal players. So do, go the numerous guaranteed tournaments, the juicy Super Weekday tourneys, and the Guaranteed Sunday Million. It took Party nearly 3 weeks to even post an updated web page bluntly, unapologetically, nixing all the above, even though many of us had won entries into these bigger tournaments.

Now, as I am going through the site, I see the biggest action tournaments are FREEROLLS, where players that still have accounts there can try and earn a few bucks from Party Poker reserves. The rest of the active tournaments pale in numbers – where the most interest is in a 6 buck tourney. Party used to put these on every second hour and get twice as many participants fro each one. Now there are just a few per night, ranging from 50 to 750 players at peaks hours.

Besides the disappearing promotional tournaments, the Super Weekday tournaments have gone from 800 – 1500 entries, to 100 – 300 entries at best! It’s a total collapse. The site was always plagued by irritating tournament software quirks that were never paid attention to. Now they may have time to fix some things. A lot of things.

The day after the BAD DECISION, I waited 15 minutes for a $10 buck sit and go tournament to start. I use to wait for 15 seconds or less. Never mind that, I got so fed up with my STEPS credits that I burned through the sit and gos, basically donking off my credits because there weren’t enough players to fill the next higher level anyway. What a joke.

The Party got interrupted at the climax of the night. Now having a look at that site and the pathetic tournament action, it’s hard to remember how fun it once was.

I fear it now for Party Poker that even if someone gets some gusto in that corporate office and reverses one of the worst business decisions ever made in history, there is really no chance of capturing that Party magic again.

By: Marty Smith

About the Author:

Better known by his Full Tilt Poker alias ‘durrrr’, Tom Dwan was born in Edison, New Jersey, on 30th July, 1986. At only 23 years old, Dwan has become one of the most popular poker players in the world, winning millions playing online, and appearing on Full Tilts ‘High Stakes Poker’ television shows, but just how did a teenager change the face of online poker and win millions?

As a teenager he regularly played for fun with his family, but when he was 17 years old he decided to try his luck at online poker. He created an account at PokerStars, using the alias Holdem_NL, and deposited $50. He began playing $6 sit n go tournaments, and almost blew it all when he found himself with around $14 left in his account. He had a good run however and soon grew the $50 into several hundreds and decided cash games was where he could earn most money. He became a member of Two Plus Two (the popular poker forum), and began grinding at the low stake cash games. Dwan was a regular winner and was rapidly moving up in stakes as his bankroll ballooned.

Soon Dwan found himself playing $10/$20 No-Limit Hold’em and was crushing the games, which were the largest stakes available online at the time. Being such a prolific winner at the biggest games available brought lots of attention to Dwan and soon the whole poker community was talking about him. At this point the $10/$20 stakes just weren’t high enough for Dwan and he went in search of bigger online poker games, which is when he found European poker sites which offered $200/$400 heads-up tables. Yet again Dwan proved to be the biggest winner in the games however action dried up and no-one wanted to play against him, forcing him to search for another new room to play at.

He soon found out that Full Tilt Poker had began hosting the highest stake games available online and immediately created an account, this time with a new alias. He decided to go by the name of ‘durrrr’ in the hope of tilting his opponents when they lost to him. As usual Dwan began crushing the No-Limit Hold’em games, however there was lots of high stake Omaha action and Dwan found himself losing his winnings. Dwan persisted though and soon began winning the PLO games too, making him online pokers biggest money earner.

Despite crushing the online games for years, 2009 has been without doubt his most exciting year. As well as his continued success playing online, he announced the now famous ‘durrrr challenge’, challenging anyone (except for close friend Phil ‘OMGClayAiken’ Galfond), to play him heads-up multi-tabling four tables at $200/$400 stakes for 50,000 hands or until someone quits, with the opponent having the choice of game selection – either NLHE or PLO. Dwan has offered 3:1 odds for his opponents, if he wins they must pay him $500,000 however if his opponent wins Dwan must pay $1.5 million, all this on top of the winnings over the 50k hands! Finnish high stakes poker player Patrik Antonius was the first to accept the challenge, opting to playing PLO, and their match is still continuing because of conflicting schedules.

As well as this, he set a live version of the challenge, with English player Sammy ‘Any Two’ George being the first to accept. The live version has a $500,000 buy-in with blinds of $500/$1000 and will last for 500 hands or until someone decides to quit. The challenge is set to take place in December in Las Vegas.

He also made history by winning the largest pot ever televised – $1.1 million. He won it during filming for the fourth season of Full Tilt Pokers ‘Million Dollar Cash Game’, with Phil Ivey being the player to pay off his straight.

And at only 23 years old Dwan was considered for pokers greatest honour this year, being shortlisted for the WSOP Hall of Fame. Although Dwan wasn’t inducted, it shows just how much of an impact he has had on the poker world, online especially, and he will without doubt be a Hall of Famer in the future.

By: Alan P

About the Author:

Full Tilt Poker Allows You to Play With the Pros – Get $600 Free Now!

If you have read any popular poker forum online you can undoubtedly come up with a never-ending slew of bad beat stories that can fill a weekend’s worth of useless reading. Some forums actually have separate sections just to manage the foul hand histories along with the depths of despair in one dark little digital corner, just so you actually have the option of going in there if you so choose.

What you will find though, on your travels through suckoutville is that most of these bad beat stories come from the lower limits of play. This is not to say that bad beats are more or less common at different levels but just that the players in lower levels lament over them more often. Most pros know to stay away from that kind of sorry talk, especially when they know they made the right move at the right time.

Full Tilt Poker is by far the poker site most mentioned when experiencing the baddest of the bad beats with frightening regularity. One of the things that players should keep in mind though is that in the lower levels a lot of players simply don’t care, or can’t fathom they are behind in a hand and will quickly push their chips into the middle not having a clue how far behind they may be. That doesn’t have anything to do with Full Tilt Poker, it has a lot to do with the low limit tournament player’s lack of skill, patience, and level of carelessness. (Yes, players will enter a tournament and NOT care about the outcome).

This is one of the underlying reasons that playing in the early stage of a tournament, whether it be a sit and go or multi-table version in the low buy-in levels requires passive play, not aggression. Of course you won’t hear too many pros saying that, but they don’t play the low limits either except for Chris Ferguson. And when Chris Ferguson does play in the low limit tournaments, he plays far tighter than he would even the WSOP tournament.

The reason to play passive is to trap over aggressive players that think they can run and bluff in the 2 buck tournaments, and let me tell by volumes of experience, that is a completely foolish strategy. Opponents at this level will call any draw, any pair, any ace king or queen high. YOU CAN’T bluff them because they are virtually un-bluffable.

Now there are good players in almost ANY online tournament, but they are the ones that are there at the end of the tournament, not the ones you play in the early stages. In that sense yes, you can open up your play after you have reached in-the-money or nearing the final table. You see aggressive play has always been the domain of professional players but that’s because of the stakes involved.

Would Phil Ivey call all-in the first hand with A9s at a $120,000 Poker After Dark table? Would the likes of Mike Matusow push all-in with pocket 33 on the first hand? Absolutely not. Plays like these happen all the time at the $5, $10, $20, even $30 buck tournament tables with alarming frequency. So the best strategy to counter the fools and avoid the bad beats is to wait patiently for your hand and trap the monkeys.

By: Marty Smith

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