After a remarkable ’09 in terms of high stakes action, the high stakes tables at Full Tilt don’t look so interesting. Railbirds miss the insane action that invaded the tables at the end of the year but there’s a reason why things have cooled at Full Tilt. First of all the suspension imposed to Brian Townsend after breaking the rules of the poker room for the second time has certainly made other players things very carefully about what they mention to the media and what they type in online forums. The second reason is that one of the biggest live tournaments outside of US territory is taking place at the Bahamas and most of the poker pros have taken the time to fly there to take a shot at some of the great prize pools at stake.
The Full Tilt Pro Phil Ivey is in pursuit of a seven digit profit at the start of the year, he currently sits among the top 65 places on the chip count at the PCA main event, with more than 880 players remaining in the tournament he remains a very strong contender in the tournament. He was involved in a hand that put his tournament life in jeopardy during day two of play, the hand in question was calling or not an all-in move after seeing a board that ran 7h-2s-2h-Jd-3c; Ivey was in a tight spot and after thinking about it for a moment he called while holding pocket fives, it was a great call since his opponent was trying to force him to fold after chasing a flush draw that never hit. But trying to force Ivey to fold never seems like a good idea.
The high stakes action that has been taking place at Full Tilt between January 3rd and January 7th has made Urindanger a profit of $271K, next on the list is PixKim with $107K also in the same profit range is URnotINdanger2. On the losing side sit the online screen names FinnishNightmre with -$200K, followed by LarryBertleman with -$145K, bixiu with -$138K and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies with -$107K.
Railbirds and the poker community await a comeback from players like Isildur1, Gus Hansen and Tom “durrrr” Dwan among others. Only time will tell if 2010 will be a better year in terms of high stakes action.
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