There have been a lot of Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) in Full Tilt Poker’s checkered history. Yet another one will kick off in a couple weeks when FTOPS XXIX launches the first two of its events on February 21st. Running for three weeks through March 13th, FTOPS XXIX will feature 46 events and over $1 million in guaranteed prize pools.
This year’s FTOPS is longer than last years, which lasted 15 days and spanned 35 events. Despite growth in that sense, FTOPS XXIX is smaller when it comes to payouts, as the guarantees – as mentioned – only total a bit more than $1 million. For comparison, last year’s FTOPS had a $1 million guarantee for the Main Event all by itself.
The buy-ins for FTOPS XXIX are also lower on the whole. The most expensive tournament is $500 and there are only a couple of those; there are several more $250 events as well as $100 tournaments. Many of the events will cost players just $25 or $50. Last year, there was a $2,500 and a $1,000 tournament (the Main Event was the latter) while lots of the vents were at the $250 or $500 buy-in level. The cheapest was $100. Accordingly, Full Tilt has gotten rid of FTOPS’ little brother, MiniFTOPS.
There will be two FTOPS events every day of the week except for Sunday, when there will be three tournaments.
As is always the case with FTOPS and many other online poker tournament series, there will be a leader board on which players can earn points based on where they finish in the various events. The top ten overall finishers at the end of FTOPS will win a share of $5,000 in prizes. The top player will receive three $250 tournament tickets, three $100 tournament tickets and four $50 tournament tickets.
There are also FTOPS satellites, as one would expect. Those who play in a satellite and don’t win an entry into the target tournament, though, can grab an FTOPS “Golden Parchute” and try to qualify one more time in a freeroll held the Sunday following their bust-out. The Golden Parachute freerolls during FTOPS award ten seats each into specific FTOPS tournaments, while the one for those who failed in satellites leading up to FTOPS will award fifteen tickets.
Full Tilt is also introducing the FTOPS “Free Pass,” a daily freeroll qualifier that anyone who earns one Full Tilt Point during the previous 24 hours can enter. The top fifty players in the Free Pass earn tickets into the FTOPS Free Pass Freeroll on March 12th during which five FTOPS XXIX Main Event tickets will be awarded.
The complete FTOPS XXIX schedule as well as the FTOPS leaderboard can be found, naturally, on FullTilt.com.
