The tenth Full Tilt Online Poker Series wrapped up over the weekend and emerging victorious from the $5,200 buy-in Two-Day tournament was Amit “amak316” Makhija, who took home a healthy $550,000 payday. The event drew exactly 500 entrants, paying out $2.5 million to the top 54 spots. Some of the world’s top pros braved the felts for the tournament, which played out over the course of Saturday and Sunday.
Makhija has made the transition from the online poker world to the live arena fairly effortlessly. He won the $100 rebuy online in March on PokerStars for $46,000, which is often considered to have of the most talented tournament fields. He also took down the $100 cubed on Full Tilt Poker for $19,300. Makhija received a considerable amount of face time on cable station ESPN over the summer by virtue of finishing fifth in Event 1, the $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em championship. In August, he was the runner up to poker pro John “The Razor” Phan at the World Poker Tour’s Legends of Poker event, pocketing over $560,000.
On Sunday, Makhija nearly matched his WPT payday by outlasting the 500 person field in the Two-Day Event. The tournament was played six-handed and the final table panned out as follows:
1st Place: amak316, $550,000
2nd Place: KaKeTKa, $362,500
3rd Place: PureCash25, $262,500
4th Place: Buster Love, $195,000
5th Place: NEONPILS99, $137,500
6th Place: dpowell, $90,000
The highest finishing pro from Team Full Tilt Poker was Brandon Adams, who bubbled the six-man final table and finished seventh. Adams, who graduated college at just 19 years-old, finished 69th in the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event and cashed for $130,288 in the process. He also took sixth in the $10,000 No Limit Hold’em Championship during a 2006 WSOP Circuit Event stop in Tunica, banking $114,475. He’s well-known for writing “Broke: A Poker Novel,” which poker pro Phil Hellmuth commented was “Excellent, entertaining, and extremely well written … I couldn’t stop reading,” according to the review provided by Amazon.com.
2008 WSOP November Nine member Craig Marquis finished 24th. He was the first person knocked out at the final table of the Main Event when it resumed last weekend. On the final hand, Marquis found all of his chips in the middle holding pocket sevens against Scott Montgomery, who held A-Q. The flop came A-10-7, giving Marquis bottom set and Montgomery top pair. Montgomery caught a running J-K for a straight which sent Marquis, who was a dominant favorite statistically after the flop, packing in ninth place, $900,000 richer for his efforts.
Coming in 11th place in the Two-Day Event was Kevin “GetPWN3D” Saul, who is more commonly known in the online poker world as “BeL0WaB0Ve.” He notched a pair of six-figure cashes during FTOPS IX, finishing in second place in the $300 rebuy event for $167,000 and adding a fourth place showing in a $1,060 buy-in tournament for $105,000. Saul won the World Poker Tour’s Bellagio Cup III in 2007 for $1.3 million, besting Full Tilt Poker pro Mike Matusow heads-up in that event. He has three WSOP in the money finishes on his poker resume for a grand total of $27,261.
A number of high-profile online poker players landed on the leader board when all was said and done in the FTOPS Two-Day event including Davidp18 (12th place), kwob20 (28th place), cheesemonster (44th place), bigdogpckt5s (48th place), and SowersUNCC (86th place). David Benyamine and Kristy Gazes, who are both Full Tilt sponsored pros, also finished in the top 54.
The Two-Day tournament premiered during FTOPS V and was won in its first running by Grndhg25. Recent winners have included wuddacooler, csimmsux, Halfrek, and hAAyd. Besides the Main Event, it is one of the most popular tournaments held as part of the FTOPS. This year, the event became a six-max tournament and the buy-in was doubled to $5,000 + $200.